


Named

by RC_McLachlan



Series: Named [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Episode Related, F/F, Gen, M/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-27
Updated: 2010-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-14 03:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 94,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RC_McLachlan/pseuds/RC_McLachlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesus Christ is dead. Somehow, that <i>isn't</i> the worst part of Dean's week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This is not a prologue

Chuck hates prologues.

Even before the shit with the apocrypha, he never used them. Prologues are the ducks of the writing world: fun to look at, but ultimately serve no purpose. Prologues belong in bad blockbuster movies where an explanation is needed for the audience about backstory, or because generally movie audiences have a collective IQ of 4 and can't be thrust into the middle of the action. Stories don't need prologues.

This is not a prologue.

_"You're not in this story."_

_"We're making it up as we go."_

Castiel lowers his gaze to the floor, eyes cutting through the dirty tile, foundation, and earth, casting a heated stare full of blame upon the hordes of Hell. Maybe. Well, that's what he would write, anyhow.

This one single scene is a goldmine. It would put him on the New York Times Bestseller's List for a fucking decade. For this alone he'd be mingling with J.K. Rowling and Paul Auster while Dan Brown would be crying in a bathtub somewhere.

_"I'll hold him off! I'll hold them_ all _off!"_

He likes Castiel. The little he knows about Castiel has come from the angel's dick-ass family, but it works. The whole "I'm a mysterious mystery straddling the line between my duty and what I believe is right" thing makes for a great character. Once he publishes _Lucifer, Rising_ , the fanbase for Castiel is going to explode. Next year at Comic-Con, Chuck fully expects to see at least fifteen people walking around in the tax accountant get-up.

But it's more than just being likable, because every character in the stories he wrote before all this was likeable. It's a fact -- he used to be a good writer. To some extent, he still is, but now the plot and the characters are not his to claim. Sam's likeable, Dean even moreso. They're the heroes, after all. They're the constant around which his words revolve. For all that Dean and Sam have done -- and they've done a shitload -- they don't change. Characters that don't change can still be likeable, but they aren't relatable.

Castiel is relatable because he's changed. Is still changing, faster than the words can be written. People like change. People relate to change; it's a very human thing.

And as Castiel places his hand firmly but somehow gently, like the caress of someone who has the feelings but not the knowledge of what to do with them, upon Dean's forehead and thrusts him away from the kitchen, away from what will certainly be a scene worthy of the CSI season finale, Chuck thinks that Castiel will surprise everyone by being the most human of them all in the end.

There are only the two of them now, Castiel staring at the smudges of dirt on his palm left behind from Dean's skin, and Chuck hoping that there will be enough of his cabinets left to salvage when this is all over. He's never been a handy guy. Giving him power tools can only end in tears and a trip to the emergency room.

"Perhaps you should move from this room," Castiel says quietly, dropping his hand to his side, but not before curling his fingers into a loose fist, thumb rubbing almost absently at the slick in his palm, the curious leavings behind of Dean Winchester. That little gesture, meaningless in almost every context, could be a whole chapter. A character piece. The ponderings of an angel in mid-Fall, contemplating whether or not it's been worth it; why his brothers and sisters can't see the problem of ending an entire world because they've simply grown tired of the blight in the universe that is Humanity; if the odd crackle of electricity that irritates Castiel's borrowed heart whenever his human charge enters a room is normal human behavior or perhaps an indication that something is wrong with his vessel. Or something. Castiel looks kind of like he has a chronic case of heartburn all the time.

Chuck watches dumbly as the thumb passes over the two horizontal creases once, twice, three times before he drags his eyes away to stare at Castiel, illuminated by the coming of his death squad.

"Where would I go? They'd find me," he says, glancing around the kitchen. A half-empty bottle of Skyy vodka convulses its way off a counter, slamming against the floor and spattering glass like diamonds in the light, pouring through the blinds of the little window above the sink. And wow, if Castiel had been kind enough to give him a heads-up about the whole rebelling thing, Chuck would have cleaned up a little. He feels kind of bad that Castiel's resting place has dirty dishes in the sink and empties rolling around on the floor.

Castiel's resting place. God. Castiel is going to die.

His fans are going to be _pissed_.

The room's so bright now that it's like staring directly at the sun, his eyes burning and demanding that they be shut, temples pounding with the effort to keep them open. He needs to see this. He needs to see it because he's going to be the only one who will know what happened here. He needs to be able to tell the world that something has gone horribly wrong in the universe for a son loyal to an absent father to be slaughtered like this.

Castiel doesn't seem worried. Castiel shows nothing on his face, just blank anticipation and maybe a little bit of relief. Chuck really isn't sure -- what the angels give him doesn't really cover emotions.

"You're awfully calm for, you know, being minutes away from a probably very painful death."

"It was bound to happen sooner or later."

"What was?"

"My death."

The light grows impossibly bright, like, full-on _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ , but Castiel simply turns his head and nods at Chuck, as if to say 'I apologize in advance for exploding all over you.'

The blinds framing the little window over the sink catch fire and dissolve, the ceramic just _turning to dust_ right then and there.

Chuck swallows, mouth impossibly dry, his Adam's apple bobbing with an audible click. For some weird reason, he smells roses. "I feel like I should say something. Or, like you should."

Castiel's head does that tilty-thing, like a bird or a dog hearing a noise for the first time and unable to place it. "Say something? Like what?"

"Dude, I don't know. Something, like, profound. I mean, when I publish this you're going to want to… be remembered, right? Well, you need to leave a really good quote behind." It may be the dumbest thing he's ever said in his entire life, including that time when he tried to ask Jeanne Christopher to prom through a series of _Star Wars_ references.

Castiel's head rights itself and he stares at the window for a long moment, not even twitching when the light begins to retreat from the kitchen, from Jimmy Novak's impossibly blue eyes. "They are here."

"Totally not what I had in mind."

"I'm not concerned about being remembered. All that matters is that Dean stops Sam from killing Lilith," Castiel says, but something flickers in those freaky eyes at the mention of Dean's name and Chuck jumps on it like a fat guy after a velour jogging suit.

"Well, think about Dean, then! He's going to want to know what your last words were and believe me, the first thing he's going to say is, "Did he say anything good?"!" He pauses, then rakes a hand through his hair. He seriously needs a shower. "Dude, I can't believe we're talking about your death like this. You're going to _die._ "

Castiel's eyes dart to the blindless window, then the floor, then the window again. Chuck totally calls character development. "If… If I were to give you a message to relay to Dean, would you…"

This. This is it. The money shot. The fans are gonna freak. "Dude, yeah, of course."

Castiel nods, swallows, and it's such a human thing to do that Chuck rethinks the whole 'Castiel is totally unafraid to die' thing. His heart clenches tightly, a zing of pain cracking against the inside of his ribcage. It's so not fair. For two-thousand years, Castiel did his job, did everything that was asked of him, and when he tries to take a little something for himself? He gets his fucking death warrant signed.

"Please… Tell Dean --"

"Castiel."

In all honesty, Chuck was expecting Zachariah to pop out of a hole in the floor and shout, "BOO!", a big grin stretching his douchey face as he ushers in the main act of the evening.

But no. Standing in the kitchen doorway is the skinniest girl he's ever seen. Her arms legitimately look like someone broke off tree branches and stuck them into her shoulders. She might have been cute if she'd had anything to eat in her life except water seasoned with tapeworms. And yeah, that's an awful thing to think and he's so going to Hell for it.

The hard look Castiel cuts him says the angel would love nothing more than to spend his last three minutes alive by casting him into the Pit.

He turns back to the girl, avoids looking at her freakishly tiny wrists, and suddenly it comes to him as if it's always been there, the name slip-sliding through him like light bursting through cobwebs, a single pulse coming from the end of the universe. Barachiel. The Lightning of God.

In that frail body, trapped by bird bones and sinew, is an archangel.

Suck it, Dan Brown.

"Barachiel," Castiel says, completely without inflection, chin tilting in the most respectable of nods. Got to hand it to the guy. He's pulled Dean out of Hell, disobeyed Heaven's orders by thinking for himself for a change, kicked Zachariah's smarmy ass in the green room, and is currently staring his own death in the face. And what does he do? He's _nice_ to his would-be executioner. It's like some store of bad-ass no one's ever tapped. Sure, Chuck Norris and Dean Winchester can both kick your ass, but Castiel? Castiel will do it with _manners_.

"I am glad I got to you first," Barachiel says, gaunt jaw working around a mouth full of strangely perfect, white teeth.

"I must admit, I am surprised they sent you. Forgive my impertinence, Barachiel, but the Seven have never involved themselves in our matters." Castiel's eyes dart from Chuck to the door to Chuck again, obviously saying _get the fuck out of here while I distract her with politeness._ Bad. Ass.

Barachiel tilts her head. Must be an angel thing. "Would you have preferred Zachariah?"

"No," Castiel says, chastised, voice drawn low and almost soft.

The dark head tilts even more and Chuck waits to hear something crack. It looks like the angel doesn't know the limitations of the human form, because they're approaching _Exorcist_ levels of creepy now. "Where is your Righteous Man?"

Lips pinched tightly, Castiel lowers his chin and gives her a dark stare, dark enough that even Chuck has to take a step back, because _damn_ , Cas. If they survive this, he's starting the Castiel Facts. Fact One: If you mention Dean Winchester in a negative way, Castiel will start a second apocalypse. Okay, it's not a good one, but once they catch on the internet will do the rest of the work for him. Like, Fact Two: Killing Castiel won't make him dead, just incredibly angry. Fact Three: Castiel can eat beer with chopsticks.

Yeah, totally not focusing on the matter at hand. It's completely understandable -- what normal, sane person could? Sometimes this whole thing is just too big.

As if on cue, light explodes from Castiel's back and knifes through the air, a great bolt of what looks like fuzzy lightning that splits in two, fanning both left and right before finally coming to a rest, buzzing with pure energy. Chuck can't figure out what the hell he's looking at for a moment, then, oh. _Duh._ Wings.

He's seeing an angel's actual wings, not just half-formed shadows on the walls.

"He's not here," Castiel announces loudly, and something cracks outside. Maybe thunder. Chuck covers his ears about a second too late and now his ears are ringing like someone just struck a gong next to his head. So not helping the hangover. "He's stopping what you allowed to start. What you _wanted_ to start."

Barachiel's mouth convulses awkwardly, trying to grimace but failing to understand how. "I freely admit that things… have not been cohesive in Heaven, but I am not here to --"

"I will not allow you to usher in an undeserved end to this place, these people," Castiel vows hoarsely. Chuck's heart starts pounding, possibly even louder than the bug zapper hum of Castiel's wings. "It is not the place of the Host to make such a decision. It never has been."

"The Righteous Man broke, as was foretold," Barachiel murmurs, fingers clenching at her sides, darting out to touch the air before withdrawing as if burned. Was Castiel like this during his first few hours in a vessel, testing and pushing against human limitation and sensation? "Castiel, brother, I have not come to --"

"Dean Winchester will stop this."

Chuck's heart tightens and cracks at the absolute surety in Castiel's voice.

Barachiel fixes Castiel with a cool stare, head tilted, nearly non-existent eyebrows furrowed in what could be interpreted as confusion.

Castiel's chin lifts. "What?"

"You. Your vessel. You. I cannot distinguish between you. You do not wear that body as you ought; you wear it as if you own it. As if it is yours. As if you were human." Barachiel frowns. "How close are you to them? How close are you to the edge, brother?"

Ouch. "Hey, we're not that bad!"

Barachiel turns, and oops. In the pantheon of bad moves, this one's right up there, because now the archangel's attention is on _Chuck_.

"Prophet," Barachiel says, blinking, as if realizing he's been here all along. She turns back to Castiel. "It does not matter now! It is over! I came because --"

And --

Hey, wait a sec.

Chuck puts a hand over his eyes, unable to help it. His head's two seconds away from exploding all over the walls. Information overload's never fun, especially while he's awake and sober.

Then he knows.

Oh.

Oh _shit._

"Prophet?"

"Chuck?"

He looks at Castiel the angel, at Cas the friend, at the only being left in existence with faith in the outcome of humanity. It doesn't matter anymore.

It's over. It's all over, and he was wrong.

This is totally a prologue.


	2. Part One

The boat left and he wasn't on it. It's the only explanation, because Dean has _no_ idea what the fuck is going on.

Sam shifts uneasily at his side, staring at the place where Lucifer (and wow, Sam doesn't do things by halves) was supposed to pop out of the floor and do a vaudeville number, but so far he's been a no-show. Took his all-powerful exploding light back into the ground and refused to come out. Unless the exploding light was a diversion, which wouldn't surprise Dean in the least. He and Sam _would_ be the dumb fucks staring at the pretty light while the Devil waltzes out the front door.

Most days, he feels like it's just by the grace of God that he can actually wipe himself.

"Dean," Sam hisses, and Dean tilts his head in Sam's direction to let him know he's listening, but there is no way he's taking his eyes off the floor. "Dean, what the fuck just happened? Where's --"

"It tickles me that you think I know," he snaps. C'mon, Lucy, you bastard. Whenever you're ready. "If anyone would know, it'd be you."

"I said I was sorry!" Sam shouts hoarsely. "What more do you want from me? A formal apology written in blood?"

It'd be a start. "I don't want your demon blood, Sam."

"I didn't know! Ruby said --"

His jaw clenches of its own volition. "Okay, new rule: we're never mentioning that bitch's name ever again."

He hates this part. The waiting. On his good days (which is an oxymoron, because Winchesters don't have good days, just days when they don't need to switch up fabric softener with holy water) he's incredibly impatient, so dealing with anticipation has never been his strong point. In fact, next to sharing his feelings, it's his weak point. Waiting to face down the Devil just might be the one thing that does him in.

"Dean," Sam murmurs, his hulking frame moving to stand closer to him, and Dean takes a perverse pleasure in the fact that Sam has to step over Ruby's dead body to do it. "I don't think he's coming."

He snorts. "Did he call you up on the hotline and ask to reschedule?"

But Sam, like any small and annoying dog, won't let it go. "No, I mean… maybe something went wrong. Maybe Lilith wasn't the final seal after all."

If that's the case, then he just spent a whole day in a green room with no entertainment for no reason, and that just isn't going to fly.

"Or, maybe the angels managed to hold Lucifer off? I don't know."

 _I'll hold him off! I'll hold them_ all _off!_

The angels. Like the one he left to die in a drunk writer's shitty little kitchen. His mother would be so proud.

When she told him that angels were watching over him, he's pretty sure she meant the kind found in renaissance paintings and kids' movies; the same shit forced down everyone's throats since birth. Angels aren't beautiful women dressed in white gowns, with golden wings, haloes, and harps. Kind-hearted people with voices like church bells in the spring, who want nothing more than to guide humanity through its own failings.

They don't perch on your shoulder, or protect you from harm. They don't rebel. They don't die. Except, of course, when they do.

There are only a few things Dean has trusted over his long, long hunting career. The Impala, for example, is a safe haven. Has always been, from the moment he sat in the driver's seat. That bitch's knife (his, now), the symbols still as perfect as they were when he stole it from her, is security. Sammy is his back-up, his better half, his brother. Bobby is his surrogate father, his compatriot, the one to go to when the getting's rough, or good, or both.

That had been it and he had been fine with it. Less is more, or whatever.

Until a night in a barn. Until he started equating trust with the smell of displaced winter air. Until the sound of a million wings flapping meant help had arrived, whether he wanted it or not. Until an ill-fitted tan coat meant confidant. Friend. Savior. Something indefinable, no matter how much Mary Winchester thought she knew.

"Dean?" Sam grabs him by the shoulder and shakes him once, startling him out of his mind (a dangerous place to be) and back into the game. A very, very one-sided game.

"Here I am, all dressed up with no one to take me to prom." Something bubbles up his throat, tasting strongly of vomit and malt, and he doesn't have the time to take a step back and examine it for what it is: worry. So he buries it. It's one of the things he does best. It's more than easy to shove it into a shoebox to be forgotten in the back of his mind, thrown under witty one-liners and a carefully-crafted bravado. After this? He deserves a fucking Oscar.

"So…" Sam rocks back on his feet nervously, something he only does when he's completely worn out. "Do we go?"

"Go where, Sammy?" What does one do when the Apocalypse is kind of up in the air and Satan's turned out to be a fucking flatleaver? He's pretty sure that they'll be ambushed -- by the Devil or his number one fans, the angels -- the second they step out the door.

Sam rakes a hand through his hair with a frown, eying the floor. Dean snorts, unable to help himself.

"Dude, you need a haircut. You look like you're in a VO5 commercial." Finding funny in a dark place has always been his coping mechanism. It's what keeps him from screaming bloody murder, most days. "Okay, first things first: we high-tail it to Chuck's."

"Why Chuck's?" Sam asks, surprised.

"Because I left Cas there to square off against a fucking archangel -- don't you want to see the look on their faces when I tell them that Lucifer's a no-show?" Because maybe, if they get there in time, he can lend a hand. He's only human, but he's also Heaven's buttboy and that's got to count for something. It's probably not the best idea to bank on the possibility that they won't kill him, but it's really the only option he has right now. "So, let's get out of here before Lucifer pops out of the floor and proves me wrong."

With one last glance at the congealed spiral of blood, Dean turns on his heel and takes a few steps to the door. Except his footsteps are the only ones echoing in the place. He looks over his shoulder to see Sam hasn't moved an inch. Rage simmers in his belly. What part of 'Cas is going to explode everywhere' didn't Sam get?

"Sam," Dean barks, snapping his fingers once. If Sam wants to keep playing the kicked dog routine, Dean's going to treat him like one. "Get your ass in gear."

The haunted look in Sam's eyes tells Dean that they're not going anywhere, not until Sam's had his emotional breakdown for the week.

"That's all you have to say to me? That's it?"

He nods. "Yeah, Sam. That's all I got. Now move your ass --"

"I almost started the _Apocalypse_ ," Sam says, eyes wide with guilt and the words skirting the edge of desperate. It's all Dean can do not to flinch. "I… God, Dean! The things I did, the things I said … I hit you, Dean. I almost killed you."

Yeah, time to cauterize this conversation, _now_. "It's done with, Sam. It's over. Forgotten, forgiven, and all that shit."

More like buried. After Sam and his demon whore made their grand exit, he'd spent days digging up every flowerbed, every seed of trust and love Sam had ever planted and sown, until only a crater remained. Then he took everything, shoved it another shoebox, and covered it with dirt, gravel, cement, brick and insulation. And for good measure? He poured an ocean on top.

"No," Sam says, shoulders back and chin up, holding his ground. For one ridiculous moment, Dean wishes that Lucifer would make his entrance and knock Sam right on his ass. "No, Dean, it's not done with. I need you to acknowledge the fact that I fucked up royally. I need you to tell me so we can move on, or else this is going to come up again and -- Dean, just tell me. Yell at me. Hit me. Just -- Come on!"

It's getting to the point where he'll be pissed enough to dig up all that shit and tell Sam exactly how hurt, how betrayed he felt. And, well, no. "Sam, I will _leave_ you here if you don't shut the fuck up. We need to go. Now."

"Dean --"

Okay. That is fucking _it_.

Dean stalks forward, fist drawn back. He really, really wants this. Maybe he should have dropped a desert on top of that ocean, or maybe his adrenaline is still pumping even after Lucifer turned out to be a no-show, or maybe it's because this is how he solves things. Whatever it is, he really wants to beat the shit out of something and Sam's as good a target as anything. The promise of a fight sings through him.

Except Sam doesn't move to defend himself. He just stands there and braces himself.

Dean drops his fist and stops. That is _not_ fair. "Oh, come on! Don't puss out on me, Sam!"

Sam ducks his head, the way he used to when he was six and getting ripped a new asshole by Dad for touching a crossbow without supervision. For being fourteen and running ahead of them on a hunt. For being twenty and leaving them for the bright promise of college and normal. For betraying him for a demon.

For being six and not knowing just how ugly the world really is.

He sighs, the fight leaving him. "Sam."

"I'm sorry, Dean. I'm… I don't know what else to say, but I'm sorry," Sam says miserably, and Dean recognizes the tone, knows that if he were to look closer he would find Sam's eyes rimmed in red. And if there's one thing he can't stand, it's seeing a fucking grown man weep.

"C'mon, Sam, it's okay."

"It's not," Sam protests. Dean heaves another sigh, shoulders dropping.

"Fine," he relents, something in his chest loosening. "It's not. Actually, I don't think you could have fucked up any worse. But I'm giving you a pass. You fucked up -- don't do it again."

There. Never let it be said that he's totally heartless.

Sam lifts his head, a watery smile breaking over his face, and Dean relaxes. It's okay. _They're_ okay. He glances down at dark hair spilling over stone like mud, at the dim glint of a silver charm that never belonged to her, and resists the urge to shout "Hah!" at a corpse. Bros before hos, bitch. You, especially.

"Right," Sam agrees, blinking quickly.

Satisfied, Dean heads for the door, more than ready to leave this place forever, when he remembers that he doesn't have the Impala. Castiel bamfed him here. Shit. That means he not only has to hotwire a car (because there ain't no way he's riding around in that bitch's highlighter on wheels), but none of his shit is with him. No weapons, no holy oil, nothing. Just his knife, which had done so much damage to _Cas_ that first night; he can only imagine how hurt an archangel will be if he stabs it.

Fuck it. He'll improvise. He's good at that sort of thing.

He looks back at Sam to make sure he's coming and his eyes are drawn to the man standing just beyond Sam. The American Medical Association doesn't know why people have aneurysms -- he knows. It's because of creepy shit like _people appearing where the Devil's supposed to be_.

He moves to grab his knife, but he catches sight of a familiar tan coat and the _killkillkill!_ instinct relaxes into relief with a pleased rumble. "Holy shit, Cas!"

Castiel doesn't react to the sound of his name or the blaspheme, just stares at Ruby's body like it's the most interesting thing since Creation. Dean exchanges confused glances with Sam, because _weird_ , even for Castiel. Sam shrugs.

"So, Lucifer called," Dean announces, throwing his arms wide with a shit-eating grin. "Apparently his agent double-booked him and he won't be able to make your fam's shindig. He said he was really sorry about the mix up and promised to send a fruit basket."

Nothing. He tastes vomit and malt again.

"Cas?" Sam tries, eyes all concerned and earnest, and doesn't get as much as a twitch.

"Hey, Cas," Dean says softly, taking a step closer. The line of Castiel's shoulders is board straight, as if drawn with the help of a leveler, the kind of tense that sets off about ten million warning bells. Dean approaches him slowly. He can recognize the slow meandering spark of a lighted fuse when he sees one; he's been there enough, suffered through the wait and prayed for the explosion in the hopes he might finally achieve the eternal peace he's always wished for.

Castiel isn't supposed to know that feeling, though; he's not supposed to plumb the depths of that kind of low.

"Cas," Dean says again, trying to keep his muscles as loose as possible, to appear as non-threatening as he can. No need to spook the poor bastard and wind up with a dislocated head. "Cas, you hurt?"

Another step, a quick survey of the tense and trembling outline of tan-clad shoulders, and he knows. Fuck. The archangel didn't kill him but might as well have. Dean doesn't know jack shit about the Super Secret Angel Club, but he can guess what being kicked out means, and Castiel is out. Cas is out because of him.

He reaches out and clasps Castiel's shoulder. "Cas --"

Castiel jerks up and away, startled, leaving Dean's hand suspended in mid-air and Dean too shocked to move. It's like Castiel didn't even know he'd been there. Castiel knows. He always seems to know.

Dean throws up his other hand, both held in front of him in his best 'don't upset the crazy angel' pose. "Easy."

Castiel's eyes dart around the room, taking in the old walls, the awkward frame of Sam's gigantic body, before landing on Dean and then skittering away again. Spooked. Flustered. _Human_.

"I am here to take you home," Castiel says, voice hoarse and stretched too thin, like a rubber band ready to snap.

Dean waits for him to ask about Lucifer, to ask if he and Sam are all right, to tell them that he kicked some major archangel ass and is standing before them the victor. But nothing follows. Something's fishy in the land of Mary.

"Cas, did you hear me? Lucifer never showed up. I mean, Lilith bit it, but something went wrong. I think we're in the green." Dean can hear his own voice rising with hysteria, with the overwhelming need to snap Castiel the fuck out of whatever this is. It's freaking him out.

And then he sees it in the barely there light of the window, a sliver of too-bright in this tomb. It cuts a downward path without a sound before plunging to its death on the stone floor.

"It no longer matters. It's over," Castiel says, lips tightening around a quiver, nostrils flaring. Another follows the first one to the ground, then another, then another.

"Jesus Christ," Sam breathes as Castiel lifts his tear-stained face to them, and Dean reads the end of the world in the eyes of a truly devastated angel of God.

"Is dead," Castiel whispers. "The Son is dead."


	3. Part Two

They go back to Bobby's. There's really nothing else to do.

For three days, Castiel sits on the first step of Bobby's front porch and doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Doesn't as much as blink. Not for lack of trying. Dean spends the time bothering Castiel, every hour, on the hour for the dumbest reasons he can come up with. 'Hey, Cas, you hungry?' 'Hey, Cas, Sam found the funniest video on YouTube -- you ever hear of George Carlin?' 'Hey, Cas, _Jurassic Park_ 's on. Were velociraptors seriously that fucking creepy?' 'Hey, Cas, who really killed Kennedy?'

Sam says Castiel is in shock, is grieving, and Dean can totally understand that. Jesus dying a second time? Yeah, pretty out there. What he doesn't understand is why Castiel is mourning someone who obviously didn't give a shit about him. If Jesus Christ had been alive and well all this time, the least he could have done was step in during the Green Room fiasco, or had Castiel's back when they thought it was all going to fall apart at Chuck's, or stopped Sam from fucking things up with Lilith. Maybe not the last two -- he was dead at that point, right? -- but he could've prevented any number of seals from breaking. From where Dean's standing, it looks like the _savior of Mankind_ dropped the ball one time too many. What a chump.

When he's not trying to annoy Castiel back into life, he divides his time between waiting for the angels to pop in and firebomb the Impala in retaliation for stopping the Apocalypse, and catching up on every episode of _Dr. Sexy, MD_ he's missed in the last year.

He's watching the end of episode 35, "Breaking Adrenaline", when Sam comes in, pushes Dean's legs off the armrest of the couch, and shuts off the TV.

"I was watching that! Dr. Stefan just cut Johnny's LVAD wire!"

Sam doesn't look sympathetic. At all. "Dean."

That tone could mean one of two things: "Dean, I've decided that we're going green and we're going to conserve energy, starting with the TV" or "Get off your soap opera-loving ass and do something about your catatonic guardian angel." He's willing to bet it's not the first one.

"Sam, he doesn't even -- it's like he's not there. I don't think it matters if I'm out there bugging the shit out of him or in here watching TV." Besides, it's not like he's been concentrating all that well on the episode, what with his _catatonic guardian angel_ on the front porch. Absurdly, he keeps wondering if Castiel is cold out there, alone. In the 70-degree weather.

"Dean," Sam begins with a sigh. A lecture or a heartfelt confession is about to follow. "Look, I get that you have the emotional maturity of, like, a fetus, but think about what this is like for Cas. I don't know what Jesus Christ was like, but I'm guessing he was… one hell of a guy. Like, _the_ guy. It's freaking me out that Cas is like this, too, Dean, but there's got to be a reason for it."

"Dude, he was never there when Cas needed him!" Or when Dean needed him.

Sam shrugs, eyes vaguely guilty. "I wasn't always there for you. But that doesn't change the fact that --"

"You're a giant girl?" Dean suggests, giving in. He'd been planning on going out to the porch after the episode ended, anyway. "Seriously, Sam, let it go. We're good."

"I just feel like Cas is going through something huge. We don't know what Jesus Christ was to the angels -- He was the son of God, right? And God's their everything. I think Cas just lost a big part of himself, y'know? A big part of what makes him _Cas_."

"Cas is his own person," Dean snarls without meaning to.

Sam blinks in surprise, but doesn't comment on the odd remark. Dean's absurdly grateful. He has no idea how he'd even begin to explain that one.

"Cas isn't a person, Dean," Sam says softly, like Dean's slow and forgot that Cas -- no matter how loyal to Dean he is -- is still Castiel, an angel, answerable only to the great football coach in the sky. "I don't think he's ever felt a loss like this. He probably doesn't know how to deal."

"So, what," Dean asks, gut tight, "should I go out there, hold his hand and tell him everything's gonna be okay?"

Sam gives him an unreadable look before relenting with a sad shake of his head, hair swinging around like a fucking shampoo commercial. "I just think it'd… be good if he wasn't alone. Even if all you did was just sit with him for a bit instead of bug the shit out of him."

"Just sit."

"Yeah. Just… be there."

Castiel'd been willing to die for him. Castiel'd turned his back on Heaven for him. Castiel'd pulled him out of the Pit.

This time, Dean can be the one.

He stands and stretches, then reaches out and punches Sam in the arm as hard as he can. That surprised whine will never get old.

"You know what happens when you bring up feelings, Sam," he reminds his brother, taking great pleasure in the way Sam grumbles and rubs at his arm. "Try not to eavesdrop, Pollyanna."

"I'll try to contain myself," Sam says with an eye roll and then slinks off to wherever he came from. Probably geeking out over demon lore with Bobby, or talking about just how amazing Jesus was.

Dean grabs a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the way outside, because there's no way he can do this again without alcohol, and slams open the screen door.

Surprise, surprise. The statue formerly known as Castiel is right where Dean left him: sitting on the first step, hands in lap, staring at nothing.

Dean drops down next to Castiel with a grunt and follows Castiel's blank gaze into the front yard; Bobby's running light on the scrap, looks like. The place is almost empty, just an uninterrupted stretch of scorched land. Not the kind of place an angel should be spending all of his time.

"Hey, Cas," he says, uncapping the bottle and bringing it to his mouth. He pauses, rethinks it, and then offers it to Castiel first. "Drink?"

No answer. Dean shrugs and takes a pull. The whiskey cuts a straight path of fire all the way down, leaving warm embers in its wake. Good stuff. Bobby'll be pissed when he finds out that Dean drank it all, but it's his own fault for leaving it out for anyone to find.

He settles back against the porch, shoulder brushing against Castiel. Well, here he is. It's not going to amount to much, no matter what Sam thinks. Castiel is nowhere near Bobby's, drifting elsewhere in the universe, wherever it is people go when they can't deal.

"I'm sure it's nice," Dean says aloud, taking another sip from the bottle and relishing the burn in his nose. "I hear the weather's nice there this time of year. I've never been, never had the time, but I bet it's one hell of a getaway."

There's a flash of an image, the tan coat thrown over a chair and pale skin strewn across sun-soaked white sheets. He takes another, longer sip.

"You know, I've always wanted to take a vacation. To the places you always see advertised on TV, where you can ride a fucking horse on the beach. Just for a weekend -- no need to overdo it.

"When we were kids and Dad was off on a hunt, Sam and I would sit in the motel room and plan it out. We usually picked Hawaii because we didn't know much about Aruba or the Bahamas, plus we wouldn't need passports. Sam always wanted to try scuba diving; he had a thing for manta rays for a while. Me? I just wanted to plant my ass in the sand and not move the entire weekend. The sunburn'd be worth it, just to be able to relax."

He smiles against the mouth of the bottle, imagining an eight-year old Sam in a scuba mask and wetsuit. Too cute.

"And me?"

Dean nearly drops the whiskey, head snapping around to stare. Castiel hasn't moved but there is definitely some life in that body.

"What would I do on this vacation in Hawaii?" Castiel asks softly, staring straight ahead.

Dean says nothing for a long moment, practically an eternity, then bumps Castiel's shoulder with his. "You'd be in town, checking out the souvenir shops. And you'd probably steal all the hermit crabs up for sale and let them go at the beach. And then _I'd_ have to explain to the cops that you're, like, a few tacos short of a combo meal and it totally isn't my fault. Either way, Sam'd have to post bail."

"It doesn't sound like a fun time," Castiel murmurs. "Perhaps I ought not go."

Dean laughs. "You kidding? It'd be a fucking laugh riot! Of course you'd go. I'm not going to Hawaii without you."

Finally, some movement. Castiel tilts his head down to stare at his hands. "Thank you."

The way he says it, like Dean's ten pounds of amazing in a five-pound bag, makes Dean uncomfortable. The only person who should sound that grateful is Sam for every day Dean doesn't pour itching powder into his underwear. Castiel shouldn't have to thank him for a goddamn thing -- he was willing to take on the whole of Heaven for Dean. He gets a pass.

"Dude, it's nothing. And it's not like it's ever going to happen. Vacations are normal and us Winchesters don't do normal. At the very most we'll luck out and land a motel with a pool."

Castiel lifts his head and stares out at the front yard again, as if seeing something worth looking at among the random bits of metal. "Perhaps… one day we will try normal and go to Hawaii."

He can't help the grin that stretches across his face. "Sure, Cas. When this is all over, we'll do Hawaii. Poor bastards won't even know what hit 'em. Pearl Harbor, part two. But only if you promise to steal hermit crabs and get us arrested."

"I promise," Castiel says gravely, and Dean laughs. Best fake first vacation ever.

They fall into an almost companionable silence, Dean warm from the whiskey and Castiel giving out body heat like a furnace. With a sigh, Dean lies back against the wooden boards of the porch and closes his eyes, hand curled loosely around the neck of the bottle. If this is what it takes to have this kind of silence, the good kind, then he might have to start killing some of Heaven's favorites, too. And, wow, what a horrible thing to think.

Dean opens one eye and peers up at Castiel to make sure his stupid brain just didn't get his ass smote, but Castiel is back to staring at nothing. Dean closes his eye and exhales long and slow.

"Wanna talk about it?" He pauses. "I will never say those words again, so you might want to take me up on it."

Castiel blinks like he just came out of a daydream and looks at him. Even with his eyes closed, Dean can feel the gaze like a physical thing. Castiel has a way of looking at you, through layers of skin and tissue to get to the heart of the matter, cataloguing everything that makes you who you are on flashcards that he can pull out to use against you. Dean wonders which card Castiel is looking at now.

"I don't know where to start," Castiel confesses, his usual smoke on broken glass voice barely registering over the faint breeze that half-heartedly stirs. "There is… so much to say."

"Apocalypse's on hold for now," he reminds Castiel, shifting so his shoulder blade doesn't quite dig into the wood. "We've got time. And trust me, we don't have to hash out everything. But getting some of it off your chest helps. I hear it does, anyway. So, lay it on me. First thing that comes to mind."

"Jimmy."

Dean sits up, surprised. That'd been the last thing he expected to hear. "What, for real? What about him?"

Castiel licks his lips, chapped and cracked in this dry air and from sitting like a stone for three days straight, and tilts his head up toward the sky, toward the sun. The light falls on his cheeks like a revelation and Dean sucks in a surprised breath at the way those pale cheeks go rose under the heat.

"When I sent you after Sam, I released Jimmy Novak from this body," Castiel says quietly, reverently, like he's mourning Jimmy, too. He probably is. "There was no need to experience the wrath of an archangel, not after his many sacrifices for me. I promised him that he would finally find peace in the presence of his savior." Castiel smiles, and it's an ugly broken thing. Dean hates it. He's been waiting for Castiel to dislodge the stick from his ass, to smile, to laugh, and this isn't the kind Dean was hoping to see. "Jimmy had been so happy, so relieved at the prospect of meeting his Lord. And I sent him to a place devoid of the Son. It's all I can think about. He gave so much and in return received so little."

Dean says nothing for a moment, then ventures, "So… It's just you in there?"

Castiel huffs softly, like he's trying to laugh but still doesn't know how. "Yes. I am alone in this body."

"Shit, Cas, I'm sorry," he mutters, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, hard enough that he sees stars.

"I don't feel better," Castiel announces, like it's Dean's fault. At this point, it's pretty much just par for the course.

Dean snorts and finishes off the whiskey, taking comfort in the strong buzz he's got going on. Nah, scratch that, he's definitely drunk. It's five o'clock somewhere. "Was worth a try."

The barely-there breeze from before kicks up the dust at the bottom of the stairs. A piece of a dead leaf lands on Castiel's knee, the dried out brown bright against the black cloth. Castiel picks it up delicately between his thumb and forefinger and holds it up to the sun, studying it.

Dean is so out of his element here, it's funny. He's such an idiot. "So… you guys were… close?"

Castiel releases the leaf and watches it blow away, somehow making it the most profound thing Dean's ever seen. Totally the booze's fault. "He was my vessel, Dean."

"No, I meant Jesus," Dean clarifies, because _duh_. Of course he didn't mean Jimmy. You don't get much closer than a vessel.

Castiel smiles slightly, a little less fragmented than before, but still cracked to shit. "I have millions of brothers and sisters, so many that I don't know all of their names. Acquaintances and allies, Dean, is all we are afforded. But in the Son, I had a friend."

An ugly feeling oozes in his chest, sticking to his ribs, spreading black slime all over the place and making it really fucking hard to breathe normally. Some friend. Where was Castiel's friend when Uriel and Zachariah decided they wanted to run the show and use Castiel's unfailing loyalty as a poker chip? Where was his friend when Castiel needed to tell someone that he was beginning to question and doubt the shit the Host was doing in God's name? Where was his _friend_ when Alistair was about to rip him out of his vessel and probably kill him?

"You have friends," he says finally, the words slurred to his own ears. Castiel ducks his head, and fuck, that's almost adorable. He's too drunk for this.

"I know," Castiel says, and all Dean hears is 'I didn't know'. "But there are no friends to be had in Heaven."

Castiel shrugs, the gesture too stiff to be casual. Dean hides a laugh with the hand holding the whiskey bottle. Castiel definitely practices human body language in a mirror somewhere when no one's around. He'd put good money on it.

"Your brothers and sisters aren't your friends?"

Castiel looks at him as if he'd forgotten Dean was brain damaged. "No. My brothers and sisters are my brothers and sisters."

"That's stupid," Dean scoffs, winding back and hurling the bottle as hard and as far as he can. It disappears from sight but he can still hear the glass shatter. Getting rid of the evidence. Bobby'll never know.

"We are not all fortunate as to have the camaraderie you and your brother have," Castiel says tightly, obviously offended, probably thinking that Dean's mocking his manpain. Angelpain. Whatever. Dean Winchester is not a mocky drunk.

This is unsurprisingly turning out the way he thought it would: badly. At least he can cross 'Piss a grieving angel' off his bucket list.

"You should," he mutters, too warm from the whiskey and just plain _tired_. "You can be friends with family. You're not supposed to be able to differentiate between the two. That's what it's all about. Weird that they don't teach you that shit at Bible camp."

"Perhaps 'family' is the wrong word," Castiel supposes almost thoughtfully. "It's a hierarchy, a caste system. That we are related is almost incidental."

Dean twists the ring on his finger, sluggishly watching the resulting splotch of refracted light on the next stair. "I'm guessing you weren't one of the cool kids to begin with."

"I was a soldier."

"A nobody."

"I am expendable," Castiel says matter-of-factly, closing his eyes and taking in the sun. "My kind was created for that purpose. Follow, fight and fall."

He wants to look at Castiel, tell him that he's so much more than expendable, but the words won't penetrate Heaven's conditioning. His tongue's loose enough that he says it anyway. "Dude, you're not expendable."

"But I am, Dean," comes the expected answer, followed by the unexpected. "Ten-thousand others were born the moment I was. Ten-thousand meant specifically for my purpose. Follow, fight and fall. When one perishes in battle, there will always be one to take his or her place. That is what I am, what we are. That is how my brothers and sisters see me and mine."

"Cas --"

A slim-fingered hand lifts, forestalling his protest. "Jesus Christ saw us as individual. That's why I mourn him, because he treated me the way you do."

Dean can feel his cheeks grow hot. Throwing that bottle away had been a _bad_ idea, almost as bad as drinking everything that had been in it. He wants nothing more than to press the glass against his dry mouth, his heated skin. Everything's so warm and shaky. It's the worst kind of drunk: the kind where his usual vise-like grip on control has loosened to the point where he can feel it sifting through his fingers.

"He made me feel… necessary," Castiel adds, turning his head just slightly, enough that Dean can see a sliver of blue between parted lashes.

"Yeah," Dean mumbles and scrubs the back of his wrist against his mouth. "Yeah, I got what you meant, Cas."

The silence shifts from almost-companionable to uncomfortable and Dean itches to fill the air with something.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

Castiel turns his head completely to the side, staring at Dean full-on. "You said that once before. 'I'm sorry.' Why are you apologizing? It wasn't your doing."

Dean shrugs. "You say 'I'm sorry' when someone dies and you don't know what to say."

"Why not say nothing if there is nothing to say?" Castiel asks, head tilted in that curious way he has, too reminiscent of a bird.

"I don't know! It's just what you say!" he growls, annoyed, and then subsiding with a grumble. Way too drunk for this. His mind's floating in a warm haze, the conversation too substantial for him to even keep up.

Castiel stares at him for a long moment, then pulls back and looks away. The corners of his mouth twitch, a movement so brief that Dean totally would have missed it if he were sober and not staring at Castiel like a creep. But it’s there and it's real. Whole.

"Thank you," Castiel finally says, like what Dean was trying to do just clicked. Dean's heart thuds at the smile that isn't quite there. "For saying it."

"Dude, it's nothing."

This is the longest conversation he's had with Castiel, ever, and he's not even sober for it. It feels like one of those moments, the ones he has more often than he'd care to admit, when he remembers that a fucking _angel of God_ pulled him out of Hell and spends ten minutes with his head between his knees at the sheer enormity of it. It's easy to forget that Castiel isn't human, even with his weird quirks and lack of pop culture knowledge. Sam was right, the fucker. Castiel isn't human and has never experienced the death of a loved one -- sure, he probably loves all eighteen-million of his siblings, but to have someone who considers you special and then lose that person? Yeah, Dean can see why this is such a big deal. Why it warranted three days of exposure to the elements. Why saying something as stupid and inadequate as 'I'm sorry' means the whole world.

His thought process is about to shift into an introspective piece on all the shit he takes for granted when a light touch to the back of his left hand blows the fog away, leaving him almost too-aware of everything. He's sober.

"What gives?" Dean demands, but Castiel isn't looking at him. That stare is focused back on the yard again, and when Dean turns to see what's so interesting, he freezes

Someone's standing there, the outline of the silhouette glowing in the sun.

"Fuck," he mutters, then leans back without moving his ass from the stair and shouts, "Sam! Get your ass out here!"

When he rights himself, the silhouette is no longer a silhouette, but a woman. A woman who's awfully close all of a sudden, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"Castiel," the woman says flatly, and it takes Castiel's incline of the head for Dean to realize it's a greeting. Hell, even Uriel and Zachariah had more personality than this bitch. "How are you."

Sam bangs out onto the porch, then freezes when she transfers her cold gaze onto him.

"He is crawling with sin," she announces and something cracks loudly behind the house, like thunder or a gun shot.

Castiel's face is fucking stone. "He is not to be touched, Barachiel."

Dean can hear Sam's shallow gasp of recognition behind him. Fuck. This must be one of the archangels, then.

Barachiel tilts her head. It's not nearly as funny as when Castiel does it, and that only serves to make Dean hate her more. "Fine."

Castiel stands in one fluid movement, but makes no attempt to leave the stair. Dean scrambles to his feet, too, palms scraping against the wood of the step and he definitely has a splinter or two. He wants to get his hand around the hilt of his knife, but it's not going to do dick against an archangel.

"Were you the one they sent to kill Cas?" Dean hears himself ask distantly, ignoring Sam's hissed 'Dean, shut up!' and Castiel's surprised exhale.

Barachiel studies him like he's a particularly interesting bug that she might feel bad about if she stepped on. Her eyebrows go up, and she turns back to Castiel. " _You_ are 'Cas'? You allowed them to rename you?"

The way she says 'them' doesn't even make him sound like an interesting bug now. He's gone from butterfly to beetle in a matter of seconds.

"Look, lady," Dean begins, because if she's back to deliver _more_ bad news -- like that she's here to actually kill Castiel -- then there's going to be a fight. A very one-sided, predictable fight. Bobby's going to kill them. "Sorry about your botched Apocalypse and everything, but don't you think that it's a bit soon for more cold-blooded murder?"

"What the hell is goin' on here?!"

Perfect timing.

"Bobby," Sam says slowly, placing a giant hand on Bobby's shoulder to stop him from shooting the archangel with the sawed-off shotgun in his hands. "This is Barachiel. The _archangel_."

"She has come for me," Castiel adds firmly, without taking his eyes off Barachiel, who lifts her pointy chin in an almost haughty way.

"I have come to tell you that the Mourning begins tomorrow at dawn," Barachiel says, narrowing her eyes. Dean glances down and suddenly can't look away from her wrists. How are they that skinny and still functional? "I thought perhaps, despite any… disagreements you may have with the Host, you would want to attend."

"Disagreements," Dean snorts, crossing his arms over his chest. "Fancy way of saying 'your family wants you dead for thinking for yourself'."

"Dean," Castiel murmurs, "Please stop helping."

"Because you really aren't," Sam agrees quickly, ducking Dean's half-hearted swipe.

Castiel isn't paying attention to them, too busy regarding Barachiel blankly. Dean has no idea what's going on beneath that façade, but if it were him he'd be beyond pissed. Real nice of the family to invite him. Classy. It was probably in Jesus's will: _Don't let all my hard work go to waste by ending the world, stop making bubblegum schnapps, and allow Castiel to come to the funeral._

"Thank you, Barachiel," Castiel says. "I will be in attendance."

Barachiel nods. "I feel it prudent to mention that the ceremony will be led by The Voice."

Maybe it's because Castiel has spent so much time around him, or maybe it's because Castiel yanked him out of the Pit and they're connected in some way, but Dean knows the exact moment when Castiel is going to take back his RSVP. It's nothing overt or even noticeable. Castiel flexes the fingers of his right hand once, something he only does when he's upset or anxious. He did it on a park bench in Dean's head and again in the Green Room. Dean tries to be as subtle as possible when he glances down to watch those long, artistic fingers curl in and out. He probably should be paying attention to the _archangel_ standing on Bobby's property, but that hand is too distracting for him to do anything else but stare.

"I see," Castiel says, fingers flexing. "Perhaps it will be… best if I do not attend."

"Yeah, no," Dean butts in, like he always does. None of this 'my grass is so emo, it cuts itself' bullshit. "Dude, if anyone should be there, it's you."

"Dean --" Sam starts, but if Sam's going to be a fucking buzzkill, then he doesn't get to talk right now. Big brother says so.

"Quiet, Sam," he interrupts. "Cas deserves to go. He's the only one who actually _mourned_ this guy."

Barachiel stares at him in semi-obvious shock, as if no one's ever talked back to her. And knowing the heavenly higher-ups, he's probably right. Good. About time someone knocked these assholes down a peg or two.

She turns to Castiel, visibly annoyed. " _This_ is your choice?"

Dean's more than confused, and it's pretty much his default setting these days. It's like they skipped an entire conversation, speaking in half-formed sentences and finding understanding in looks and awkward human body language. But Castiel tips his chin up and pinches his lips in such a way that his mouth all but disappears. "Do you have anything else to relay, Barachiel, or are you simply here to insult?"

Dean can't help but smirk at that. Atta boy, Cas.

Sam shifts uneasily behind him and Dean reaches back to punch him right in the thigh. "Stay still."

"This is going to get ugly," Sam whispers, too loud, even for the outside. Dean says nothing.

"You forget, _brother_ , to whom you speak so informally," Barachiel growls, the words rattling around in her throat like broken glass and pebbles, making the hair on his arms stand on end. Man, he really misses Zachariah. At least with that douche he knew what to expect. Barachiel sounds like she could kill Dean with a napkin.

"I haven't forgotten," Castiel says evenly, but there's a thin line of steel beneath it. "I will not tolerate disrespect of any kind toward these men. You owe much to them, for all their sacrifices. For you."

Barachiel huffs derisive amusement through her nose, nostrils flaring with it. "So much faith in these base creatures. I no longer find it difficult to believe the Christ child held you in such high regard."

Castiel sucks in a breath like he's been punched in the gut, surprise and pain tangling together and riding inward to stake a claim in those new lungs of his, and that is fucking _it_.

Before his brain can catch up with the rest of his body and remind it what a bad idea this is, he's stepping onto the bottom step and staring Barachiel down. His fingers itch with the need to wrap themselves around the hilt of his blade and bury it into her borrowed skull. He wouldn't even feel bad for her vessel; the girl, whoever she was, had been the one to say yes.

"Okay," he says quietly, dangerously, feeling the sugary-sour urge to throw this bitch down on a stone tablet and rip her wings out through her chest. Put some of those torturing skills to work. He hasn't tasted this kind of blood thirst in a long while. "Okay, you're gonna leave now. That was about as low as you could take it and you can't possibly have anything left to say. So, you get to beat it the fuck back to your buddies, tell them you put _Cas_ and his human pets in their place, and keep your pointy little crown for all your adoring fans to see."

She clenches her hands into fists. The air smells cloyingly sweet, like roses, with a hint of a buzz.

"Dean, shut your trap," Bobby snarls, but Dean's not done yet.

"I never met the guy, but I bet Jesus'd bitchslap you in the mouth for the shit you've been spouting. _Cas_ is a thousand times more faithful than you'll ever be, and that may not count for much with you guys anymore, but it means a fuck of a lot down here in the mud."

Fingers close gently around his wrist, stilling his words. Castiel squeezes it once in warning, or maybe gratitude, before releasing him and looking at Barachiel with calm eyes.

"I think you have worn out your welcome, sister."

Barachiel swallows audibly, like she doesn't know what to do with these odd human reactions and needs to consciously force the spit down. She exhales sharply and steps back, taking the smell of roses and lightning with her.

"I truly hope you understand what it is you are doing here," she says softly, unforgiving in every way. "Because I do not."

And she's gone.

Dean takes a moment for himself, mostly to stare at the place Barachiel had been and smirk in sweet, sweet victory.

"Fucking idgit!"

Bobby's fist catches him in the back of the head, sending him stumbling off the step and struggling gracelessly to regain his balance on the ground, boots kicking up dust and dirt. Dean puts his hand over the area. He can feel it throb as blood rushes there, pounding like a second heartbeat beneath his fingers.

"Dammit, Bobby!" he shouts, rubbing hard at the skin beneath his hair, wincing at the white-hot stab of pain that flares at his touch.

"Thank you, Robert," Castiel says roughly, eyes squinted in a glare. "You've saved me the trouble of doing the same."

"Dude," Sam chimes in, and suddenly Dean's victory isn't looking so sweet. "That was without a doubt the _dumbest_ thing you've ever done. And you've done some dumb things. Remember the time with the succubus mayor and your eighty-three packs of Slim Jims? I think this was dumber, and I never thought I'd ever say that."

Dean frowns. "This totally wasn't as bad as the succubus mayor."

"Archangel, Dean," Sam reminds him, eyes wide with anger. Dean has to hide a smile, because that face is so unintentionally hilarious, especially since Sam's so serious. "Archangel who could have _eaten_ the succubus mayor. _And_ your Slim Jims."

"Cas totally had my back," he says, throwing a grin Castiel's way and trying not to take it personally when Castiel's eyes don't even soften under it.

"Cas would've been little more than flesh soup after an archangel was through with him," Sam volleys back, jaw set. He pauses, then glances guiltily at the angel in question. "No offense, Cas."

Castiel shrugs, the movement obviously practiced. "It's true. Dean, I understand your death wish is part of you, but could you please try and be subtle about it?"

Dean eyes him suspiciously. "Was that sarcasm?"

"No."

He laughs. "That was totally sarcasm, you shitty liar." And just as quickly as it had come, the levity is sucked from the air. He watches Castiel in silence for a good thirty seconds before shoving his hands into his pockets, if only to keep from touching the knob growing on his head. "So… What time is the funeral?"

Castiel shakes his head. "No."

Dean glances at Sam and Bobby, who look as confused as he feels, and then reaches out to clap Castiel on the shoulder. That can't be it. Castiel sat on a fucking porch for three days for the guy -- no way he was missing out on the burial, or whatever it is angels do. "Cas, you said he was your friend."

"He was." Castiel looks up at him through his lashes. "He was my friend. But I can't go."

Sam hunkers down one step. "An archangel invited you. I'm not really seeing a problem, Cas."

Something shifts under Dean's hand, something he can't see but can certainly feel hum against his fingers, and he withdraws in surprise. Castiel doesn't seem to notice and Dean probably wouldn't have gotten an explanation if he'd asked for one anyway. He files it away for future, futile questioning.

Castiel presses his lips together and shakes his head once, just a slight movement that would have been a full-on headbang on anyone else. "While I can appreciate Barachiel's attempt to include me in the ceremony, she is not leading it and I can't expect the same courtesy from --"

"The 'Voice'," Bobby pipes up gruffly, and Dean jumps. "May not be an all-knowing angel, but I do know my lore. It's the big boss, isn't it?"

"The Metatron," Castiel agrees quietly, eyes downcast as if he were standing in the Metatron's presence right now instead of three schmucks in South Dakota.

An image of a dark-haired man throwing back a tequila and spitting it back into a glass comes to mind, and Sam gives him a look like he knows exactly what Dean's thinking. Dean brings it up anyway.

"Alan Rickman?" He inquires sweetly, buckling slightly under Sam's swift kick to the back of his legs. "Dude, what? You liked that movie, too."

"The Metatron is the voice of our Father," Castiel explains, the blue of his eyes almost translucent in the sunlight, pupils practically non-existent. There once was a time when Dean wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere, away from that piercing gaze and all that it asked of him. Now? One of the few reassuring things he knows.

Dean stretches out his leg. Dammit, Sam. "Bet he hasn't been saying much these days. So, what's the problem? You don't even need to see this guy -- stand somewhere in the back. Not a big deal."

Castiel says nothing. Dean's thinking that maybe it _is_ a big deal and says as much.

"Our orders are usually handed to us from our superiors, who in turn get it from their superiors, and so on. In Heaven… I was given a direct order from the Voice himself."

"That's cool," he says for lack of anything else. It sounds like getting any kind of attention from the Metatron would be the angel equivalent of a twelve-year old girl getting a marriage proposal from Justin Timberlake. "So, what happened? Did you say no?"

Castiel gives Dean a sideways look, troubled and dark but somehow lacking in regret. Warmth, like holding your palm over a candle's flame, settles beneath his ribcage and spreads, and he wonders if Castiel chased away all the alcohol, all that numb haze. Then it's gone, sharp as the broken ice in Castiel's eyes, leaving Dean shivering in the 70-degree weather.

"Yes," Castiel says, and it's like a nuclear explosion. "I said no."


	4. Part Three

He sets the alarm clock on his phone for an hour before dawn, but he lies awake most of the night watching the moon trek slowly across the sky until it disappears behind the window frame. His phone lies on its side and every so often he reaches out to press a button, illuminating the screen and keeping track of the time. He holds it in his hand from 2:59 to 4:01, wearing down the battery to keep it lit. Waiting. Just in case.

His dad used to tell him stories about the Devil's Hour, how humans were most vulnerable during the three o'clock hour, probably only for the sake of instilling a sense of self-preservation in him. He's never been able to sleep between three and four, unable to get comfortable with the thin rod of unease that slides down his spine, always watching the shadows on the walls of whatever motel he'd be holed up in, muscles coiled and hand wrapped around a bottle of holy water underneath his pillow. Ready.

It's worse now. So much worse, so completely possible now. Before, in those countless motel rooms, he had Sam to protect, and maybe -- just maybe -- someone watching out for them. There's no one now. The angels are a bunch of pricks who couldn't give a shit if Dean bit the big one, God's M.I.A. and Jesus Christ is dead.

Dean rolls onto his stomach, cheek resting against an old pillow dug up from the floor of a closet, and inhales must and probably a billion dust mites. He doesn't want to get up. For once, he wants to shut the alarm off, roll over, and sleep for a year. Let the only demons he encounters be the ones his mind conjures up.

He reaches for the phone and presses a random key, wincing away from the light of the screen. It's 4:41. In six minutes, the alarm will go off and he'll have to drag himself out of the tepid warmth of Bobby's guest bed to face the dawn.

Fuck. He had been almost, sort of, maybe comfortable, even with the loose spring digging into the small of his back.

Heaving himself out of bed, Dean reaches for the shirt he'd discarded last night and tugs it down over his head, pulling up the jeans he'd slept in, the denim warm and soft against his skin. He smoothes the material of the shirt and absently scratches his stomach as he surveys the room. Still small and claustrophobic as it's always been the many nights he's slept here, but it's a familiar place, and Dean doesn't have too many of those.

The floor boards creak beneath his bare feet as he makes his way downstairs, hoping to get a pot of coffee on before Bobby gets up and tries to do it himself. He loves the man like a father, but he'd rather take another thirty years on the rack before voluntarily subjecting his colon to that shit.

It takes him a few minutes, searching the cabinets for the coffee mugs (Bobby's been rearranging shit again, the bastard), to take note of the other presence in the kitchen with him.

The shock of dark hair is a dead giveaway, but it shouldn't be, because it's attached to a head currently resting against the table top. Dean gets about three feet away before he gives up and just stares. Castiel pays no heed, just continues lying slumped over, eyes closed. Dean can't really see if he's breathing or not, but either way it's fucking creepy. Castiel doesn't sleep. Ever.

But there he is, dead to the world.

"Christo…?" Can't be too careful. But when Castiel just keeps not-breathing peacefully, Dean feels like a tool.

He feels like a dick, too, because he needs to wake Castiel up. As much as he'd like to let the poor bastard catch some shut-eye (and he'd been under the impression that angels didn't do any of that petty human shit, like sleep), he's not going to let Castiel be late for Jesus Christ's funeral. It'd be bad form, or something.

Dean walks silently until his toes brush against the leg of Castiel's chair and places a gentle hand in between Castiel's shoulder blades. He keeps his touch purposely light. Sleeping angels are a new thing -- who knows what one would do if startled awake. Sam flails after being shaken awake; angels probably wipe out entire cities.

"Cas," he whispers, spreading his fingers out, chasing the warmth Castiel radiates. "Hey, Cas. Wake up, chuckles, you've got places to be."

Castiel doesn't so much as twitch.

Dean frowns, slowly sliding his hand up to the vulnerable skin at the nape of Castiel's neck, the place too intimate for such a casual touch, but he can't pull his hand away. He feels the rise of gooseflesh beneath the pads of his fingers, the tiny hairs shivering to life and rising to meet his touch. It's a small miracle that Castiel doesn't wake up to the sound of Dean's heartbeat, so loud in the silence, or maybe it's the blood rushing in his ears that Dean hears.

"Cas. C'mon, dude, wakey wakey."

Finally, there's the twitch he'd been looking for, a quiet thump under his ring finger. He smiles.

Next thing he knows, his chin's smacking hard against the kitchen floor, his arm is wrenched behind his back so tightly he can feel something pop, and there's a knee digging into the back of his neck. 'What the fuck' doesn't even begin to cover it.

"Ow! Sonuvabitch!" He grits out, huffing spittle out of the corner of his mouth onto the floor, which means it ends up smeared _all_ over his cheek. "Fuck! Cas! It's me!"

The hand clenched around his wrist loosens just slightly. "Dean."

"Morning, sunshine," Dean snarls, kicking uselessly. He's released suddenly and winces at the protest his muscles send up as they stretch. The weight pressing him into the floor disappears without warning, and he coughs, reaching back with his good arm to rub his sore neck. He pulls himself to his knees. "God _dammit_ , Cas!"

"I apologize," Castiel says, shoulders tense and arms held tight against his sides. He doesn't even say anything about the blaspheme.

"Dude," Dean mutters, rolling his shoulder. Whatever had popped out pops back in -- he can hear it, and no matter how many times he's popped something back into place it never stops being gross. "Next time I'll just let you sleep through shit."

Castiel fixes him with a wide-eyed stare. "Sleep. I was asleep." The words are in his normal flat tone, but the incredulity is easy to pick out.

"Yeah." Dean rolls his shoulder again. Ow. "Thought you didn't sleep."

"I don't," Castiel says.

"Obviously you do," Dean says against the dull ache that lingers in his jaw. With his luck, he's probably got a hairline fracture. Perfect.

He drops down into the chair Castiel just _lunged_ out of with a faint groan, gazing up at Castiel and trying to read the blank expression there. He can't. This is the Castiel he knows; the Castiel of the past four days -- the one who wants to go to Hawaii, who stands up to an archangel for Sam, who cries when a friend dies -- has retreated behind his stone-faced mask. Something in Dean relaxes at the familiarity of it, but something else tightens to the point of pain. Nothing new here. There's never been a middle ground with Castiel. The guy deals only in absolutes.

"So," Dean says, disgustingly alert for having just had his ass handed to him at quarter to five in the morning. "Today's the day."

"Yes." A beat, then, "You are awake early."

"Yep."

Castiel cocks his head to the side, standing awkwardly before Dean, strangely supplicant and Dean can't help but wonder where he's seen this before. It takes him a moment to realize that Castiel is standing before him like a peasant before his king. Like an angel before God. Yeah, no, none of that, thanks. Dean hastily gets to his feet and goes back to the cabinets in hopes of finding a mug. He needs coffee, STAT. Five more minutes and he'll start chewing on the grinds.

"You're anxious," Castiel observes, just as Dean slams open a cabinet and finds an empty jam jar. Score.

"Well, you're going to Jesus's funeral. Figured I'd be here for moral support, or whatever." He opens a jug of Folgers, the best part of waking up, then turns on the tap and waits until hot water spits over his fingers. He's too lazy to boil it.

He can feel Castiel watching him as he fills the jar three-quarters of the way and then drops a heaping spoonful of grinds into it, stirring quickly. It's going to taste like shit, but it won't be Bobby's level of shit.

Castiel takes a step. The floor creaks out a warning, and Dean turns, leaning back against the sink. "You wish to go?"

The jar freezes on its way to Dean's mouth. "What?"

"You woke up early." Castiel says it like it explains everything and Dean's a fucking moron. "Did you want to go with me to the Mourning?"

Dean gulps his coffee -- it _is_ shit -- and gazes at Castiel over the rim of the jar. "You want me to go?"

"Do you want to go?"

Oh, they are not playing this game. Not this early. "Do you want me to?"

"Do you want me to want --"

"Cas," he interrupts, because this is too 'Who's on first?' for five in the morning. "Am I going? Yes or no."

If the answer's no, he won't know what the fuck to do. He set his alarm for the ass-crack of dawn on a day where he didn't need to do anything. Where he could have spent the morning asleep, making up for the hour he missed between three and four, not to mention whatever time he's racked up over his life. It's the stupidest, smallest thing, but he set his alarm. For someone other than Sam. If the answer's no, everything's going to change.

This must be what it's like to play Russian Roulette. With a rocket launcher.

Castiel's face remains impassive -- which is nothing new -- but his fingers flex once. "Yes."

Whatever it is he had been worrying about like a twelve-year old girl changes anyway. It shifts, the barest hint of warmth, and settles. He's never been the one with the words -- that's always been Sam's thing -- but right now he wants to be. It doesn't last long, but he wants it.

"Okay," Dean murmurs into his shit coffee."Then let's crank this shit to eleven. Where is it?"

"Resolute Bay," Castiel says reverently, eyes drawn to the window as first light breaks across the sky, a thin line of blood striking the deep blue like a knife slash. "Are you ready?"

"Let me leave a note or something." He sends Sam a text instead. _Gone 2 JCs funeral. Im awesome. Be back soon._

When he clicks out of the screen and snaps his phone shut, Castiel holds up two fingers and Dean's asshole puckers. He resigns himself to not shitting for the next week and then gestures to himself.

"Do I need to change?"

Castiel looks at him, uncomprehending. "Change?"

He's in the shirt and jeans from yesterday, creases and sweat galore, and the last thing he needs to do is piss off the angels more by showing up to the Messiah's funeral looking like Schmucky the Clown.

Castiel drags his eyes down Dean's wrinkled AC/DC tee-shirt, gaze as warm and palpable as a touch, and Dean shivers in the lukewarm early morning air. Oh, shit, his nipples just hardened. A hysterical giggle works its way up his throat and he ruthlessly smothers it, swallowing it back down. He's standing in a kitchen at five in the morning with a rebel angel, about to go to Jesus Christ's funeral, and all he can think is, 'Ding! Chicken's done.'

"Your attire is irrelevant, Dean." The hand lifts, two fingers extended, and Dean closes his eyes and braces himself for it. There's the gentle brush of skin against his forehead, surprisingly warm and soft, an almost-but-not-quite caress, and his eyes startle open because soft and warm is not something he's ever associated with an angel. Castiel is standing in his personal space -- nothing new -- but his heart starts pounding anyway when he feels the puff of not-breath against his lips.

"Are you ready?" Castiel asks, and maybe it's just Dean but it sounds quieter than normal. Softer. Warmer.

"Yeah," he says roughly, closing his eyes as the caress becomes a _push_ and then --

 

"We're here."

Oh, god, he's going to puke. Just, everywhere. He hopes Castiel brought them to the door instead of right in the middle of the festivities, or someone's not going to be happy when he upchucks all over their dress. The ground is solid beneath his feet, with a little give but it holds him up when he puts his head between his knees and breathes in and out.

Dean groans, then opens his eyes and stares at his feet. Which are wet. Clear water laps lazily at his boots, soaking into the material right through to the socks. It's fucking freezing. Awesome.

"Nice landing," he snarls and scuttles onto dry land. In this case sand, which gets all over his wet boots. He _liked_ those boots. "Jesus, it's cold here. Where'd you take us, fucking Antarctica?"

So far, this is shaping up to be the worst funeral ever and he turns to tell Castiel as much, complete with some choice hand gestures, but the first syllable sticks in his throat. Castiel doesn't seem to notice he's standing ankle-deep in water or that it's soaking into his pants and creeping upward.

"Cas, what are you…" Dean follows Castiel's gaze, and wow. Okay, now _that's_ pretty cool. Impressive, even. He laughs, breathless, because damn. "Is that -- is that just for today?"

Blue eyes made lightning by the dawn strike him. "There is a human saying that eternity began with the sea." Castiel looks back out over the bay, lost in memory, nostalgia tugging at the corners of his lips until he's almost smiling. It's not the smile from the porch when he was hysterical with Jesus's death and it's not the one he reserves solely for Dean. This is something that Dean was never meant to see or know. "He used to say it began here, at Resolute Bay."

Dean turns away, unable to stomach that look, and keeps his eyes on the sky. It's getting brighter, louder, Incan gold chasing fire across the expanse. "And, what? This is where it ends?"

"It's fitting."

"No," Dean snorts, tearing his eyes away. "It's a shitty metaphor. He'd probably hate this."

Castiel looks at him as if that answer wasn't the one he'd been expecting, just this side of offensive, but instead of taking Dean's dumb ass back to Bobby's he ducks his head and… smiles. For Dean. "You're right. He probably would."

"So, he didn't leave a will? He didn't tell you guys how he wanted to go out?"

The smile falls away and Dean mentally kicks himself. Nice one, Winchester. Why not jump up and down on the dude's grave while you're at it?

"He would have lived forever," Castiel reminds Dean quietly, turning away from the dawn and gazing over the beach behind Dean, eyes unfocused and clouded with hurt. "We had no need for instructions."

Dean glances over his shoulder, pauses, and then turns completely around. His heart rate quickens as he takes in the thousands of men and women standing silently in the sand, all facing the rising sun. Every race, every color, every age, all lining the beach. Many of them are in suits, and Dean thinks he recognizes a few of the guys standing near him from his many run-ins with Zachariah, but there are so many, too many to count, too many to know. Just standing there. Not moving, not breathing, not even blinking. Just drones, like from that Pink Floyd video.

"Have they been here the whole time?" Dean hisses. "Did they see me almost yak all over the place?"

"They have only just arrived," Castiel says, taking a perfunctory look around.

"You couldn't have warned me?" It would have been the polite thing to do. "Let me know that a million of his nearest and dearest were showing up?"

"He was the Son of God Our Father, Dean." The air behind Castiel shifts, like the kind that rises from the asphalt on a hot day, and Dean feels the buzz. "How many were you expecting to attend?"

He hadn't really thought about it, but he'd thought it would be a small, intimate ceremony. Nothing that would draw attention from the rest of the world; nothing like this.

"If someone starts singing 'We Are the World', I am out of here," Dean warns, just to fill the silence, and Castiel tilts his head.

"I am not familiar with that song. Is it a human hymn?"

Dean snorts. "Not an MJ fan, I take it?"

Annoyance tugs at the corners of Castiel's eyes, a slight tightening of the skin there. It warms Dean to see it. "You are making references that I don't understand again. Why do you do that when you know I won't know them?"

He grins. Okay, this is much better. This is probably the kind of shit Jesus would've liked to see at his funeral, none of this 'we don't need no education' bullshit.

"Because you make it too easy, Castiel."

They both turn, surprised at the sound of another voice, and Dean feels anger curdling in his gut when he sees who it is.

"The fuck are _you_ doing here?"

The Trickster grins. Dean really wishes he'd had the foresight to tuck a knife into his jeans before Castiel'd zapped them away for a day at the beach, because he'd love nothing more than to bury one right into that giant skull. "Oh, sorry, I didn't know there was a moratorium on mourning lost loved ones. I must've missed the memo, but the guys who usually write those out have bailed." He turns to Castiel with a moue of despair. "Y'know, lately the policies department has gone right down the crapper. I'd file a complaint, but the complaints department went on strike. It's really been a mess up there -- I guess this is what happens when you take your cues from Enron. I hear Chapter Eleven's next."

This might be the more surreal conversation Dean's ever had the displeasure of having. Castiel just looks horribly confused.

"Brother," Castiel mutters, almost reluctantly, and Dean takes a fierce pleasure in that. It sounds like Castiel would rather be having a root canal than to be talking to the Trickster, and --

Wait, what? "Wait, what? _Brother_?!"

"This is Gabriel… whom I have not seen in a long time," Castiel adds pointedly, fixing the Trickster with a glare that is almost epic in its intensity.

The Trickster is all smiles. "Hey there, boyo. Nice to see you're still alive and kicking."

"No thanks to you, dick," Dean sneers, and he really, really wants a knife. Or even a rock. He could do some damage with a rock. The Trickster must be reading his mind, because he laughs as if he's truly amused by Dean's thoughts of homicide.

"Not really homicide when the 'hom' doesn't apply to you," the Trickster says with a rakish grin. "Although it explains a lot, huh, big guy? The wooden stake shtick is a bit old hat, y'know."

This is so far from the plane of comprehension that blood might come shooting out of Dean's nose any second. "You're an angel."

"Yep. I'll do you one even better: I'm an _arch_ angel. Surprised?"

"Not really. You fit right in with these douches." Dean turns to Castiel, who stares back without a word. "It's friggin' fascinating that this never came up in a conversation."

"I was not aware you and… Gabriel were acquainted," Castiel says simply, and the Trickster sniggers.

"Nah, he only _killed me_ a hundred times."

It wins him a grin. "Good times, good times."

"So, _Gabe_ ," Dean says sweetly, relishing the twitch the nickname brings, "haven't seen you in a while. Where've you been during all this? Armageddon on the verge of starting and you were, what? Playing the slots in Vegas? I'm surprised your douchebag brothers didn't get you in on the whole thing."

"Call it an extended leave of absence."

"How convenient." Dean takes a step forward. "And where were _you_ when JC kicked it? Pretty convenient that no one hears from your sorry ass in a while and all of a sudden you show up for the guy's funeral."

Something dark enters the Trickster's eyes, something very old and something very angry, but it's all swept behind a toothy smile. "Let's not jump the gun, _Dean._ "

"Jump the gun?" He clenches his hands into fists. "I can hurtle my ass over a missile launcher if I get a good run at it."

"I would greatly appreciate it if you would both _shut up_ ," Castiel growls, gravelly voice a nice mediator. Dean gawks.

The Trickster immediately looks contrite and Dean wants to smack the look off his face. With a two-by-four. "Sorry, bro. How're you holding up? You and the boss man were close, I hear."

He must be wearing some kind of incredulous expression, because the Trickster catches sight of it and shrugs self-consciously. "What's your problem, peewee?"

"You expect me to believe you even give a shit about him? Do you even _know_ Cas? Isn't he kind of below your grand and almighty ass in the ranks?"

"How do _you_ know 'Cas'?" The Trickster smirks.

"I didn't until he pulled me out of Hell." Dean smirks right back. Take that, douche.

The Trickster throws his head back and laughs, a full-belly laugh that makes even Dean's sides ache. "He what?"

"Pulled me out of Hell."

The Trickster looks to Castiel, who stares solemnly back. Dean watches in confusion as the grin slowly slips from the Trickster's face, as his lips part in obvious shock and disbelief. He looks at Dean.

"He… He really did."

Dean glances as Castiel, but gets no help there. Wow, there's a change of pace. "Yeah, he did. Tell him, Cas."

Castiel glances to the left, then finally looks at the Trickster, chin almost imperceptibly twitching an answer. The Trickster's head tilts to the side, as if he's trying to see Castiel from a different angle.

"I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of it," Dean says with a shrug. "The angels needed me to do their dirty work."

"This… You were ordered to take him from the Pit." It's not a question. "It was an _order_."

What the fuck is the big deal? "Apparently God commanded it."

The Trickster stares at him. "God did."

"That's what Cas said."

Except Cas is saying nothing now, and Dean feels like he missed something big.

"Hey, Clarence, tell him."

Castiel opens his mouth, probably to cut Dean to the quick with something along the lines of 'I pulled you out of Hell and you should show some respect by keeping your dumb human references to yourself', when he stops and straightens, shoulders back and spine so straight that Dean probably could have drawn a plumb line with it. His gaze travels from Dean and the Trickster to somewhere behind them, and Dean looks over his shoulder to where a guy wearing a sweater vest and a big smile is making his way down the beach to the shoreline.

"Well, well," the Trickster utters, useless as ever.

"Who the hell is _this_ loser?" Dean whispers, nudging Castiel with his elbow, and Castiel sucks in a shocked breath. "I know. Look at the fucking thing he's got on. This is what Sam's gonna dress like in thirty years."

The Trickster covers a laugh as a badly-disguised cough. There is no way that Dean's only back-up in this place comes in the form of such a prick.

Castiel doesn't say anything in response, even to tell Dean to shut the fuck up. He just lowers his head until his chin brushes against Jimmy Novak's cheap tie and stands still. Just like everyone else on the beach.

"Cas?" He whispers, nudging Castiel again. "Dude, what?"

"Dean," comes the reply, and Dean strains to hear it. "If you ever thought to have an inclination to show respect to anyone in your life, I ask it to be now."

Dean lifts his gaze to Sweater Vest, who's positively beaming at his people statues lining the sand, and nods. "Okay, Cas. So, who is he?" _Because he has a very punchable face_ , he adds silently.

"He is the Voice."

The Voice of God looks like Mr. Rogers's creepy, younger brother.

"He's the Metatron?" Dean asks, incredulous, watching as the guy in question stops at the place where the bay meets the land and turns to face his robot audience, the sunrise behind him lighting him up and casting his face half into shadow. Yeah, creepy.

He turns to tell Castiel exactly the kind of first impression the Metatron's making on him, but he stops at the tight look on his face. "Cas?"

"It's nothing," Castiel says, which is clearly not true.

"Shitty liar," Dean reminds him quietly, leaning in a bit closer so he's not being overly loud in the sudden silence. "Can he see you? Does he know you're here?"

Castiel glances at Dean quickly, almost absently, like he's dismissed Dean from the beach altogether, and Dean frowns. The hell? Castiel was the one who'd asked him to come.

"He may very well be able to see me," Castiel finally says, mouth barely moving. "But I have… He does not know _you_ are here."

Is it his shirt? He'd offered to change before showing up, but a little AC/DC never hurt anyone. Who knows? Maybe Christ'd been a metal fan. "What's wrong with me? They still pissed we screwed up their Apocalypse?"

"Humans are not allowed in the presence of the Voice," Castiel murmurs, eyes resolutely on the Metatron. "You are not supposed to be here at all. I am… shielding you."

He glances at the Trickster to see if Castiel's bullshitting him, but the Trickster is as blank and solemn as the rest of the drones. Dean looks quickly away, because that's even _creepier_. He actually looks like an angel.

"So, why did you risk bringing me here? I could've stayed at Bobby's."

Before Castiel can even answer his question, the Metatron opens his mouth and it feels like the whole earth is inhaling to scream. Dean has the insane urge to cover his ears, because if Castiel's true voice was enough to make the windows shatter then the Voice of God is going to break the fucking sky.

But the Metatron only smiles and says, "Hello, brothers, sisters, and those once lost. It brings me great joy to see you before me."

Dean stares. Mr. Roger's creepy, younger brother who sounds like Kermit the Frog.

"I wish," continues the Metatron, "that we had been brought together under different circumstances, under happier tidings. However, in the absence of rapture in this hour, I ask you to recall a time when there were no fissures in the Kingdom, no doubts in He Whom created us and all; when war was a concept and not a practice. A kinder setting, if you will. This would be, of course, before Humanity."

Dean tries not to take offense to that, and fails.

"Now, we are past the great Departure of our brothers and sisters, past Lucifer's campaign, past the unification of the human tribes. Remember, now, when the Son of He Who is called I Am declared to the whole of the Kingdom that Humanity was worth saving. That He would save it."

Castiel draws in a shuddery breath and Dean steps closer to him, enough that their hands brush every time Dean inhales. Enough that Castiel knows he isn't alone.

The Metatron smiles at the thousands of vessels before him, all crow's feet and laugh lines which don't belong to him. "I do not wish to dwell on the afterwards, on the period of His absence, on His return, on His many, many trips back to walk among that which He loved so dearly. I wish you to stay in the moment in which He pledged His allegiance to Our Father's most beloved creation. I wish you to remember the unwavering faith, the undying devotion, the endless love, because _that_ was Jesus Christ."

The angels all bow their heads and murmur something that Dean doesn't catch -- it's probably in angel-speak and he's lucky his head doesn't explode. The Metatron is still smiling.

"This guy smiles so much that I don't think he has a central nervous system," Dean mutters. Castiel says nothing but the Trickster snorts.

Dean leans forward so he can see around Castiel to the stretch of beach and the vessels to their right. He's seen quite a few angels during this whole thing, more than he ever really cared to, and he can see a mess of them now, but there are quite a few of them that don't really fit the angel profile he's crafted in his head. Some are too relaxed in their borrowed bodies, shoulders down and skin loose, almost as if they _were_ who they looked like.

"They are not angels," Castiel says quietly, following Dean's stare. "They are demons."

He starts in surprise, because _what_? "What the hell are they doing here?"

The Trickster claps him on the shoulder, like a friend would. Ass. "Not everyone has your narrow views, tiger. Jesus loved all creatures -- no matter their status, faults, or species. Demons, too. They were allowed to mourn Him today; He would have wanted to see us as one big happy family, just like old times."

Dean shrugs out from beneath the Trickster's hand, who steps back with a grin that falls as the Metatron opens his mouth to speak again.

"It is fitting that this happens here, on Earth, as for a long time it has been neutral territory. Rare is it for a human to meddle in the affairs of Heaven or Hell in the way Heaven and Hell meddle in the affairs of a human."

Something goes cold inside of Dean at those words.

"The last time I spoke with the Christ child," the Metatron goes on, "He said this, and I cannot agree more."

Castiel looks up, frowning.

The smile falls from the Metatron's face as quickly as a winter sunset, and the Trickster gives a low whistle.

"Yeah, this doesn't look good."

Dean swivels around to look at the bastard, because you don't say shit like that when you're standing in a crowd of both angels and demons. "What?"

"I don't know," the Trickster says, squinting. "Shut up for a sec."

"Fuck you," Dean grumbles, eyes back on Kermit the Priest.

The Metatron has a face that pretty much tells Dean that his vessel was probably a republican senator from West Viriginia: perfect for smiling at constituents and middle-aged, Bible-hugging women. When he's not smiling, however, he's got a face that only God could love… and even that'd probably be up for negotiation. Right now, he's not smiling. As much as Dean hates to agree with anything that comes out of the Trickster's stupid mouth, it really isn't looking good. Even the sweater vest looks menacing.

"There will never be another day like today," the Metatron says quietly, but it rings so loud that Dean lifts his hands in an aborted move to cover his ears. "One unprecedented event begets another, for the first time, for the last time."

Dean makes a face. Would it kill these guys to talk normally? "What's he talking about?"

Castiel shakes his head. "I don't know."

"A band of rebels attempted to usher in what the humans call 'The End of Days' by breaking the sixty-six seals and releasing Lucifer." An inhale, and the world trembles. "And they succeeded."

Fuck.

All heads, belonging to both angel and demon, lift. The salt in the air disappears under the weight of the shock, horror, and thin threads of excitement that the words elicit. Dean feels like he's going to puke again.

"But nothing happened!" He appeals to Castiel, grabbing his thin wrist in his own hand and squeezing. Castiel looks back at him, emotions that Dean can't even name chasing each other across his face. "Cas, that is such bullshit! Lilith died and the exploding light happened, but that was it! Lucifer never showed!"

"Dean," Castiel says evenly, holding Dean's gaze like it's his only purpose in life. "This isn't your fault."

"Way to go, kiddo. You started the Apocalypse. And here I thought you'd never amount to anything," the Trickster says, at once disappointed and amused. "Let me guess: widdle Sammy fucked up."

He punches that smug face as hard as he can, just rears back and lets his fist fly straight and true. Something -- or some _things_ , rather -- snap audibly as soon as his knuckles meet the Trickster's jaw, the bones shattering to dust, the tendons and muscles unraveling. He stumbles back with a pained shout, clutching his hand to his chest. Fuck! It's the hand he does everything with, too. Gonna be fucking awkward wielding his knife or jerking off with a cast, but so worth it.

"That was dumb," the Trickster says blithely.

"Gabriel, that is enough," Castiel snarls, moving to place a comforting hand on Dean's back, all up in Dean's personal bubble. "That was foolish, Dean. Let me see your hand."

"It's fine," he grits out. He's not letting him near his hand, but he leans into Castiel's touch anyway. "Fuck!"

"You've shattered several bones," Castiel says, unnecessarily.

"Yeah, I remember. I was there." Taut, red-spattered silk threads shoot out and fix to the insides of his head, clouding everything up, until the world narrows down to the smell of salt, the pain in his hand, and the cacophony of the angels and demons all clamoring for answers, for validation, for some kind of truth. He opens his mouth to stage a protest, but he can't force the words out past his throat.

A strong arm winds its way around his shoulders and coaxes him to rest the bridge of his nose against the junction where shoulder meets throat. He inhales deeply, the smell of displaced winter air so strong it practically punches him back into clarity.

The words "you're fine" vibrate against his eyes and Dean exhales slowly.

"Oh, come here, you little whine bag," the Trickster gripes, eyes rolling, and he grabs Dean's hand in his own, pulling him away from Castiel's sheltering hold, which was pretty fucking _nice_ , thanks. Dean makes a sound of protest that sounds like a gurgle in the back of his throat, but stops when he realizes that the pain is gone and he can curl his hand into a fist.

"Don't say I never did anything for you."

Dean has nothing nice to say, so he says nothing, even when Castiel's pointed stare fixes on him and the side of his head starts to smoke. It doesn't matter _how_ deep of a hole Castiel's laser vision burns into him -- he's not saying thank you.

The collective murmurings of the angels and demons grow louder until it's all that fills the air, and Dean can't help but wonder when someone's going to jog by and call the police when they see the giant cult in the middle of some weird ritual on the beach.

"ENOUGH!" Bellows the Metatron, and the earth shakes beneath them, the water in the bay coughing up waves that crash into the sand. Everyone falls silent, rapt, frightened. All the air leaves Dean's lungs and he ruthlessly suppresses the need to choke.

"Dude should be a soccer announcer," he coughs, wiggling his fingers to make sure the Trickster didn't screw anything up.

"I think now would be the time to not talk for a while," the Trickster says, the words deceptively light to hide the unease plainly visible in his eyes. Dean wants to know how long it took for him to feel and show emotion, how long Castiel has to go before he gets to that point.

The Trickster's right. The Metatron lifts his chin, a move Dean's seen Castiel do a few times, and regards the precession with an oddly benevolent smile. And Dean really doesn't like that smile.

"I have been at a loss for words ever since the discovery was made," the Metatron says, still smiling. "For those who know me, that is a novelty. Never before has the Voice been without words. However, in this instance, before my brothers, sisters, and fallen friends, I cannot let my voice fail everything our Father and His Son loved so dearly."

The world, again, inhales, waiting.

"The Serpent, the Accuser, the Great Dragon…" The Metatron closes his eyes, smiling falling away, and then opens them, gathering the very bay behind him as he lets loose his Voice. "Here, before the witnesses of Heaven, Hell and the In-Between, I charge Lucifer, the fallen Light Bearer, with the murder of Logos Incarnate, God The Son, Jesus Christ."

There are no words for just how fucked up this whole thing is, and Dean once again wishes he were the one with the words. The multitude of angels and demons seem to have no problem finding their voices, because they immediately erupt into pandemonium the minute the Metatron drops the bomb. Dean's waiting for a fight to break out.

Somehow over the din, Dean hears Castiel take a deep breath and let it out in a long whoosh. He places his hand on the small of Castiel's back and presses in slightly, just enough that Castiel will be able to feel it. "Dude, you okay?"

The Trickster just gives a low whistle. "Shit just got real."

"There is, and never will be, a greater offense than when the light of Logos was snuffed out in his own home. For this, I call my brothers and sisters of all ranks and assignments back to their Kingdom!" Light explodes from the Metatron's back and knifes through the air, a great bolt of what looks like fuzzy lightning that splits into nine.

Dean can't stifle the gasp that makes him sound like some chick in a Spielberg movie. That is some epic shit, right there.

There's movement out of the corner of his eye, just a subtle shift of someone to his far left, and he knows that the fight he'd been waiting for is on its way. It's a demon, made obvious by the blackening of the guy's eyes. Dean can't help but notice the guy's John Mayor shirt. What a tool.

True to form, the demon starts forward, bug eyes narrowed with intent on the Metatron. Bad move, fruit cup.

"For this, Lucifer, and by default the Nine Circles of his domain, has issued a declaration of war!"

A great shout goes up in the crowd, and everyone starts moving.

The Metatron turns his head just so, just enough that -- Can he see Dean? He can totally see Dean. He _smiles_ at Dean and says, "And Heaven rises to meet it!"

A smell like burning rubber thickens the air, so much that it pushes tears from Dean's eyes and forces him to cup his hands over his nose and mouth. Either the Metatron totally let one, or something bad's about to go down. It's definitely the latter, because Dean's luck is never that good.

"Dean!" Castiel pulls at him like he did in the Green Room, all unchecked desperation, and presses Dean to hide his face in Jimmy Novak's lapel. Castiel holds him there, which is all kinds of awkward. Dean pushes against Castiel's vice-like grip, because, hello, _boundaries_ , but he's got as much power here as a kitten does against a skyscraper.

There's a distant buzz, like television snow, that grows louder and louder until it's rattling Dean's brain around in his head. He shouts for whatever it is to stop, because it _hurts_ , but it grows even louder. What the fuck is Cas _doing_ out there?

Something smooth, like liquid, slips around his back and vibrates against his side. He'd love to open his eyes and see what it is, but his face is mashed into Castiel's neck and he _can't move_.

He can hear the screams, though.

He can hear the screaming and smell the burning and feel the earth shaking beneath him. Castiel's fingers press firmer into the back of his neck and he chokes under the pressure. Being hugged to death so wasn't on his docket for the day.

"Cas!" He gasps into threadbare tan, pushing against Castiel's chest. It's like fighting a steel wall. "Personal bubble, Cas! I can't breathe!"

 _Be still, Dean_. It rises above everything and sinks into all that he is. He stills -- how can he even deny that anything? He stills, endures Castiel's impossible grip, and waits. But, god, he really wants to see.

One of the fingers practically molded to his spinal column gentles and strokes the skin at the nape of his neck, and Dean starts in surprise. It takes him a couple of seconds to realize that Castiel is trying to comfort him. He'd laugh if it weren't so ridiculous.

It's been a week of firsts: Jesus's funeral, Cas sleeping, Cas crying and facing down an archangel so Dean might have some extra time, and now hugging and stroking. It almost makes him wonder just what next week's going to bring, whether or not he'll be adding eating, laughing, or telling dirty jokes to the list. Castiel doesn't fit the rigid labels Dean has for people. Sam is 'brother', Bobby is 'almost-dad', Ellen is 'awesome', Jo is 'adorable', Zachariah is 'dick', the Trickster is 'asshat', and up until four days ago Castiel had been 'annoying'. Now, Dean doesn't know how to categorize him and he really doesn't like it.

After what seems like an eternity, Castiel squeezes his neck once before his fingers slip away. Dean lifts his head from Castiel's collar bone and scrunches his nose. Ow.

As he straightens, the liquid thing from before unfurls from around him. He glances down. It's like lightning, like what came shooting out of the Metatron, humming and pulsing faintly. He huffs a disbelieving laugh. Wings. Castiel totally had him wrapped up in his wings. That will never not be weird, or funny.

"The hell'd you do that… for…" Dean trails off, looking around.

The beach is a lot emptier than it'd been five minutes ago, white sand stained almost black with blood and what looks like bits of hair, fingers, and shards of bone. All that's left is the angels. "Jesus."

"Would be weeping if he knew," Castiel snaps, wiping away a glob of -- Dean doesn't even want to know.

The Trickster pulls a string of bloody _something_ from his hair and grimaces. "In the pantheon of unnecessary acts, that one's right up there." He shakes his hand until the string of whatever lets go of his fingers. "Talk about overkill."

"An effective message, if nothing else," spits Castiel.

Dean looks over his shoulder to where the Metatron is still standing, unruffled and stormy-faced, with his nine wings stretched out behind him. He looks like a fucking peacock. The rest of the angels snap to attention.

"My Seven!" The Metatron cries, and the Trickster stiffens then groans. Six others perk up, Barachiel among them. "Prepare your troops for battle! Seven days hence, in the name of Jesus Christ The Son, the hordes of Hell shall know the wrath of Heaven!"

Oh, wonderful.

A collective cry goes up, the angels apparently all stoked at the prospect of war, and Dean thinks he catches a glimpse of Barachiel in the crowd, throwing her tiny wrists into the sky.

"So, I stopped one war just to have another start?" He demands angrily, meeting Castiel's eyes and trying not to shiver at the intensity he finds there. It's never been easy to read that stare, but he thinks he can find an apology in it, like Castiel's saying 'I'm sorry for everything you've suffered, but it's about to get a lot worse.'

"Looks like I'm coming out of retirement," the Trickster grumbles. Dean whirls on him, because _really_? The Trickster gives him a look. "Oh, don't get your panties in a twist. It's not like I'm proud to be… There's a reason I left and became a friggin' _pagan_."

"Castiel!"

Castiel stiffens. Dean blinks and adds 'reacting with surprise' to 'crying, sleeping, stroking, and hugging'.

"Speak of the devil."

"Gabriel," Castiel hisses under his breath, but the Trickster doesn't look like he gives two shits about being respectful. Dean hates himself for it, but he's with the Trickster on this one.

The Metatron walks over the sand easily toward them. There's no overt reaction on Castiel's part, but he does shift surreptitiously so he's standing closer to Dean like a prince defending a damsel, and Dean's not taking _any_ offense to that, of course.

"You're the prettiest princess of them all," the Trickster says, laughter in his voice, and Dean is still not above bludgeoning him to shit with a rock.

"It brings a smile to my face to see you standing before me." The dude isn't kidding -- he's got a huge smile on his face. "You always were… resilient."

 _Dick._ But Castiel doesn't fire back some snappy insult the way Dean wants to, just bows his head and murmurs, "Metatron."

The sweater vest is like its own entity. The patterns are damn near frightening, all mustard and ketchup-colored zigzags, and Dean swears the thing is breathing on its own. It's exactly what Sam'll end up wearing in thirty years and Dean makes a mental note to put his brother down when it gets to that point.

Smiling, the Metatron reaches out and clasps Castiel on the shoulder. It's a friendly gesture, even brotherly, but there's something off about it. Or maybe Dean's just spent too much time around angels to trust even a small thing like this.

"I mean that, Castiel," the Metatron assures him, and he sounds pretty sincere, all wide eyes and guileless smile. "If one could value a life solely on its merits, yours would be priceless. I have never known such loyalty, not even in my Seven."

The Trickster rolls his eyes and looks away.

Castiel lifts his head, but not his eyes. "Thank you, Metatron."

The smile softens and the Metatron cups Castiel's cheek, his large, wrinkly hand gentle against the swell of Castiel's jaw. "I know that… the death of Logos has touched you deeper than most, and I express my deepest condolences for your loss."

Dean never met his grandfather, and John Winchester had been an only child. As far as Dean knows. It's entirely possible that there are six other Winchesters running around, all wondering what happened to their brother and his adorable sons. But Dean'd put good money down that one of his uncles would be just like the Metatron: middle-aged and way too happy. There would be cards at Christmas and family Thanksgiving get-togethers, and the odd fishing trip. All cookie cutter perfect.

Which is why he doesn't trust any of this shit.

"Forgive my insolence, Metatron." Castiel doesn't look or sound sorry about his insolence, and Dean feels a swell of pride. Three months ago? Castiel would have gotten down on his knees and whipped himself until his penance was complete.

"Oh, we have passed that," the Metatron interrupts with a smile.

Castiel swallows and Dean watches his Adam's apple bob and pull against the edge of the Metatron's palm. This is getting awkward. He shifts with second-hand embarrassment.

"Metatron," Castiel tries again. "I don't think the right way… I don't think the Son would be honored by having a war carried out in his name."

"Do you not want to bring the Serpent to justice?"

"Of course I do," Castiel says, and Dean can't help but think that was a dumb question. How else would someone answer that question? 'No, I don't?'

The Metatron beams at the answer. Anytime now he'll plop Castiel on his knee, give him a hard candy and tell him a long story.

"Do you think it is right that your brothers and sisters are not safe in their own home? Is it right that the walls of Heaven can be penetrated, the glory within polluted? Is it right that the Son can meet such an end by the hands of a _mongrel_ , who does it simply to challenge Heaven's power?" The words are powerful and meant to inspire righteous fury. _Angelic_ righteous fury.

All it means is that Heaven's not as awesome as the magazine ad claims. If the money back guarantee is bogus, Dean's going to be pissed.

"Is it, Castiel?"

Castiel ducks his head, contrite, humbled. "No," he says gravely. "Of course not."

The Metatron pats Castiel's cheek, fingers bouncing off a visibly tightened jaw, before dropping his hand with a smile. "In light of your repentance, I permit you to come back home and fight."

Every molecule in Dean protests. Castiel go back home? Back where they'll hold him down, scrub him of every bit of feeling, of humanity, until he's back to square one as the little wind-up toy Dean'd first met in that barn? Hell no.

Castiel's eyes dart to where he's standing invisible, gaze flashing wild with something unnamable, and Dean wants to smack Castiel right across the face. Dean is supposed to be _invisible_ and Castiel needs to learn how to be sneaky. He can't be blamed for not having the kind of experience Dean has in being covert, but a creature two-thousand years old should have picked up a trick or two. It's a good thing he never asked Castiel to work a case that required him to pose as an officer or something; he'd probably hold his badge upside-down, the idiot.

Just when Dean thinks the jig is up and that he's going the way of the demon, the Trickster steps in front of him, subtle and far too cocky. "Metatron."

It works. The Metatron turns his attention from Castiel to the Trickster, who stares back, bored. "Gabriel. The Host has missed your song these past centuries."

"Well, that's what happens when you've got this much talent," the Trickster says brightly.

Dean stifles a snort. Yeah, it takes a lot of talent to reach that level of douchebaggery.

"Your garrisons will be pleased to have their general with them once more," the Metatron says.

"I'm back. Just like that." The muscles in the Trickster's back shift as he crosses his arms, but it's the faint hum of electricity that Dean focuses on. He squints to see if he can catch a glimpse of the Trickster's wings, see how many there are.

The Metatron is smiling -- what a surprise. "Oh, Gabriel. As far as I am concerned, you never left."

"Huh. So, I'm still one of the Seven."

"Yes."

"Then as a… _general_ of Heaven, I'm gonna need a… uh, what do you call them? The guy who stays in enemy territory and feeds information to the people in charge?" The Trickster snaps his fingers, frustrated, "It's right on my tongue."

"An informant?" Castiel suggests, eyes wide.

The Trickster points at him in triumph. "Yes, that! An informant. I need one of those and I think our boy Castiel is just the man for the job."

The Metatron stares at the Trickster with an unreadable expression and Dean can't help but sympathize. Yeah, totally feeling you on that one, buddy.

"An informant."

"Yeah," the Trickster says, like it's obvious. "The guy who gets intel for the Brass. I saw it in a TV show once, maybe Zachariah can explain it better. I need one. They're important, informants. Being informative and everything. But I think Castiel is better suited for the job than any other angel; having been on Earth longer than most of our brothers and sisters, he knows the terrain well."

Wow. That is some Grade-A prime cut bullshit. Dean's almost impressed.

It takes a moment for Castiel to catch on, but once he does he plays the part well. "I feel that I am well-suited for this… task."

The Trickster nods emphatically. "Castiel's good like that."

Dean releases the breath he's been holding as slowly and as quietly as he can. No need to blow their cover by shouting in triumph now that they've almost gotten away with it. Castiel is going to stay, which is the best thing he's heard in, like, a month. He's happy that Cas got the green light to go back to Heaven, he really is, but he knows that too much has happened on Earth for Heaven to be enough.

He tries to keep the smug level to a minimum, but he's not succeeding. At all.

The Metatron cocks his head. "What kind of information would Castiel gather for you?"

Shit. The Trickster better have a good excuse, because with two seconds left in the game it's not looking good for the home team.

"The important kind?" And that's the game, folks. But Castiel is either really unwilling to leave or he really wants to be the Trickster's informant, because he doesn't let the Trickster -- Dean really needs to start calling him Gabriel, because he's not really the Trickster anymore -- flounder for long.

"Lucifer's armies will most likely recruit earth-bound demons to their cause. I could alert Gabriel of Hell's numbers, perhaps track down some of these recruits and… become privy to Hell's strategies." Castiel has never looked more serious, which is saying something, and it occurs to Dean that Castiel might actually be serious. "It would aid Heaven greatly to be abreast of Hell's battle plans; it would give the Host an enormous advantage."

Maybe Cas wouldn't be a crapshoot on cases after all.

The Metatron regards his two angels, both from different ends of the spectrum, and the ever-present smile falls away, leaving in its place a thin line of stone that probably wouldn't bend under any kind of pressure.

Dean sucks in a breath. Oh, god, the Metatron's not going to go for it. Any second the guy's going to laugh and say, 'Oh, and you might want to uncloak your human, Castiel. I'd like to see him before I kill his inferior ass.'

If the Metatron says no, Dean's going to give himself away by punching him. The broken hand will be worth it.

As he contemplates hitting the Voice of God, something niggles at the place behind his ear, a tingle that grows until it's as sharp as the tip of a blade twisting into the soft skin there. His Spidey sense is tingling, or as he likes to call it, his 'Hey-someone-doesn't-belong-here-and-they'll-probably-become-a-pain-in-the-ass-later-on' sense. They're being watched. Dean twists around and scans the beach, but he doesn't see anyone looking out of place or even looking their way. He subsides with a silent grumble; if Castiel, Gabriel and the Metatron haven't sensed anything, it's probably nothing. It's just him, being paranoid, because that's exactly what he needs a week before Armageddon starts.

And then it's all unfounded, because the Metatron smiles and nods at Castiel. "You have your task, Castiel."

Castiel nods. "Thank you."

"I will see you seven days hence on the field of battle." Turning to Gabriel, who's still projecting that practiced air of indifference and severe boredom, the Metatron says, "Would you like to return with me now? There is much to discuss with the other Six. Or would you prefer to confer with your informant?"

Gabriel shrugs. "Let me leave him some instructions, then I'll be along."

The air behind the Metatron explodes outward in a splash of liquid electricity and he -- for a change of pace -- smiles. "I will be waiting for you, then, Gabriel. Oh, and Castiel?"

Castiel looks up expectantly.

"You should have uncloaked your human for our conversation. I would have liked to meet him."

 _Fuck._

With a smile, the Metatron disappears in a shock of lightning, leaving the three of them standing around like dumbasses.

Gabriel makes a face. "Well, it's officially Whackadoodle-Gooferific-Apocalypalooza! I feel like I should be in a chipmunk outfit right now being chased by a penguin."

Castiel turns and stares at Gabriel. "I don't… Is that a human reference?"

"No," Dean says, shaking off the creepy feeling that's still lingering in the wake of the Metatron's parting words. _Sketchy_. "He's just being a douche. And I've gotta say, Cas, your family holds the worst funerals ever."

"I'm sorry," Castiel says. "I didn't think it would degenerate from a Mourning into a declaration of war. Word about the mass execution of the demons has certainly reached Hell by now."

Dean snorts. "Yeah, well, good news really travels fast." He looks at Gabriel. "So, what've you got planned for your informant, _general_?"

Gabriel sighs and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, an entirely too-human gesture. "Honestly? I got nothing. But I had a feeling you'd throw the tantrum to end them all if someone took your _Cas_ away, so I acted fast. You have no idea how much you owe me right now, junior."

"If you do not have any immediate instructions for me," Castiel interrupts, before Dean can re-break his hand, "then perhaps we should go."

Dean's had silent conversations with Sam. On hunts, they do it all the time, letting their bodies speak for them. The twitch of an eyebrow instead of "the ghost is twenty feet to your left". A bare nod instead of "I'm going in first and you need to back me up in three minutes." The jerk of an index finger instead of "the werewolf went due North and banked left, and you need to head it off at the pass." Silent conversations are nothing new, not for a hunter.

But what Gabriel and Castiel are doing isn't like anything he's ever seen or done. Gabriel isn't talking and at any other time, Dean would get down on his knees and proclaim it a miracle, but it still feels like Gabriel's running his mouth. A whole different kind of conversation, the kind without words or body language, just the connection of blood, or grace, or whatever it is the angels have. It's deeper than what he and Sam have, than what any human has with anyone else, more complex and intricate than the whole of the human body and can't be contained by flesh.

Dean looks away, because he's not supposed to know. No human is. So he stands invisible on a beach where Jesus Christ was mourned and where war was just declared. When he gets to Bobby's, he's either going to sleep for seven days until the world's ready to implode or he's going to curl up in the shower, start screaming, and never stop.

Just when he'd thought it couldn't get any bigger, just when he thought he had a handle on things, something comes along and fucks it up.

Murphy's Law, thy new name is Winchester.

Finally, a large grin breaks over Gabriel's weasely face. "You know, it's a shame this is our first time meeting, bro. You're just a bundle of laughs, aren't you?"

Castiel blinks.

Gabriel turns and fixes Dean with a smirk, familiar older brother protectiveness radiating from every tooth bared. "I'm coming to visit in a couple of days; places to go, people to see, bloody battles to plan. Try not to die before then, princess. I'd hate to see my baby brother lose his favorite toy."

Dean should get a medal for _not_ spitting in his face. "Gosh golly gee, Mr. Gabriel, sir," he says flatly, "I'll try to do my very best! Scout's honor!"

Gabriel sneers. "Cute. See you soon, kiddies!"

He stares at the space Gabriel had occupied, at the rippling of displaced air that takes a minute to settle. It's too anti-climatic an exit for someone as loud as Gabriel and it leaves him… tense. He turns to tell Castiel that his family -- no offense -- sucks, but Castiel isn't looking at him, too enraptured by the pull of the bay.

"Cas," he mutters, reaching out to lay a gentle hand on the swell of Castiel's shoulder.

Castiel looks away from the water, away from Jesus's favorite place on Earth, and regards Dean with his sad, too-blue eyes. They look tired, the skin underneath them bruised, but somehow they crinkle at the edges, just for Dean.

"Are you ready?" Castiel lifts two fingers, but Dean saves him the trouble of reaching out by stepping right into them, holding Castiel's gaze when they brush against his forehead.

"Hit me."

 

Sam and Bobby are waiting for them on the front porch of Singer Salvage, anxious, as if they're about to make a money drop in exchange for Dean. And once the nausea passes from their trip, Dean lifts a hand in greeting and ambles toward them. He glances over his shoulder, but Castiel gone. He doesn't take it personally; he'd have bolted in a second after all the shit from today, too.

"So?" Sam asks, thrumming with excitement, and Dean remembers the text he'd sent this morning. "How was it?"

Dean glances at Bobby, then at Sam. "Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Canada's actually not bad this time of year. The bad news is that Lucifer did get out, killed Jesus, and Heaven's declared war. And the Trickster turned out to be an archangel."

There's a pause, one he can almost feel, before Sam explodes with, "How is that -- War was -- You went to a _funeral_!"

"Apparently we were burying sanity," he mutters. "The Metatron -- yes, Bobby, you heard me -- thought the best course of action was revenge. And maybe if I were BFFL with Jesus, I'd do something stupid, too, but we have seven days before the shit hits the fan and all of Heaven's armies come steaming through."

Bobby scratches at his beard, eyes absently focused on the ground by Dean's feet. "Well, this is a goddamn mess. Heaven's going to war with Hell -- which means we're going to get caught in the crossfire. Wonderful."

"Maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe they'll bypass us completely," Sam suggests brightly, but the optimism sounds false, the words ringing hollow.

"Or maybe they'll set the whole fucking planet on fire," Dean snaps, and Sam makes a face. He knows that face. It's Sam's 'on behalf of starving children and homeless puppies everywhere, we will keep fighting the good fight!' face.

"So, what, we sit around and wait for the end to come? Dean, that isn't how we do things. We can't just twiddle our thumbs while the world falls into chaos!"

They've been given no other option. The Metatron had been creepily absolute in his half-assed plan for retribution, and if what happened to the demons on the beach is any indication, the Metatron couldn't give a shit about what happens to Humankind.

"You wanna take it up with the angels? Be my guest." Dean runs a hand over his face, sweat and oil coming off onto his fingers, grit and sand chafing against his skin, too tired for Sam's earnestness. It's only the early afternoon, but he's running on empty after a sleepless night and one of the most exhausting and fucking ridiculous mornings he can remember having in a while. He needs to crash, if only for a couple of hours.

"Dean," Sam says quietly, urgently, reaching out and laying one of his fucking grizzly bear paws on Dean's shoulder. "You're not the kind of guy to let shit like this go. _We_ aren't the kind of guys to let shit like this go. There has to be a way."

Sam's hand feels so much heavier than it should. "Dude, you weren't there this morning. There's no way these guys are gonna back down now. We have a week. Cas gets to stay with us until the fighting starts, and then we're on our own." He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to handle this, the not knowing, the waiting. It all comes back to the waiting. "I don't know what to do, Sam. I don't have any plans, except to take a fucking nap."

"Boy," Bobby says gently, jerking a thumb toward the house. "Get some rest. You look like shit."

"Your mom wasn't too proud when you came out, either, Bobby." He rubs at his eyes. "Give me, like, two hours. Then we'll talk."

He pushes past them without waiting for an answer, without so much as a by-your-leave, and makes his way inside. When he gets there, he stands in the front hall and stares into the kitchen like a fucking brain-dead serial killer, at the desk on the left and the stove littered with books and empties on the right. This is home, as close as he ever got to having one. This is it. He can't imagine it burned to the ground, or crumbling under the weight of angelic/demonic warfare, or anything that would make it something it's not.

Jesus. He rubs his eyes again and makes for the stairs and the spare room he'd claimed as his own at the age of seven when Dad'd brought them here for the first time. The bed's still unmade from when he left it this morning, and the room is still fucking tiny. Even more so with its other occupant.

"Yeah, that's not creepy at all."

Castiel is at the window, his back to Dean. "Hello, Dean."

"I hate to tell you, Cas, but I'm fucking beat. Whatever it is, it's gonna have to wait --"

"We need to find him."

Dean kicks off one boot, then uses his toes to push the other one off, nudging them against the wall so he won't trip on them when he wakes up. "'Him' who?"

Castiel turns around, backlit, his entire face cast into shadow while the rest of him lights up like the whole of Heaven is behind him. Now that Cas is back in with the fam, it probably is. "Lucifer."

He snorts, and throws himself onto the bed, lying on his stomach and shoving his face into the old pillow. He's totally going to pull a Rip Van Winkle. "Oh yeah? Because that worked so well the last time."

"Dean."

God, Castiel isn't going to be a good boy and wait two hours like Bobby and Sam. He's going to keep Dean awake for the rest of eternity. "Cas, do you really think Heaven's gonna stop? I know he's the man with the golden pipes, but your boy, Metatron doesn't seem like the type to back off once he's decided on something."

The bed dips, and Dean looks up. Castiel stares down at him, the shadows on his face highlighting his obvious exhaustion, his frustration with the angels and everything else.

He'd been dying for Castiel to start feeling like humans do, to understand just how shitty reality really is, for weeks. Looks like it's finally happened. Dean doesn't feel any sort of victory.

"The seven days of respite is a mere formality," Castiel says quietly, as if he's afraid that Dean's already dropped off into sleep and might wake if he speaks too loudly. "Both Heaven and Hell will use it to gather their forces. In seven days, the true End will be upon us. Unless we find him before the morning of battle."

He rolls onto his back and stares at Castiel, right into that freaky gaze that he's come to view as familiar. Normal. Comforting.

"If nothing can be done to end the war, then I want to bring about another end." Castiel's lips thin and he places a hand right over his mark on Dean's arm. "I want to find Lucifer and rip him apart."

Whoa. Whoa, whoa, that is some serious talk. He didn't know Cas had it in him. "Why? What the hell difference would it make?"

Castiel's fingers press into the scar and heat flares in Dean's gut, followed by an ice age that stops everything inside of him. "If someone came into this house, into your home, and murdered Sam, or Robert, what would you do? If they took from you the only family you had, what would you do? I am asking you, Dean."

"You already know the answer."

"Then you know my reasons," Castiel murmurs, releasing his arm. "I want to find Lucifer and make him face justice for what he's taken from me. From us. From all. And I am asking you for help."

Dean swallows hard, and his Adam's apple feels like it's the size of a fucking grapefruit, but he gets the gravity of the request. He knows what it means to ask him for help. Castiel pulls Dean out of Hell, Dean pays him back by being Heaven's ass-monkey for a while. Dean reminds Castiel that Heaven's being run by some idiots, and Castiel gets him to Sam in order to stop the Apocalypse. Dean fucks that up and lets Lucifer free to kill Jesus Christ, and Castiel asks Dean to right the wrong.

Quid pro quo, Clarice.

God, but he's tired of the back and forth.

Reaching up, he yanks on one of the lapels of Castiel's coat and pulls him down until he's lying next to Dean.

"Dude," Dean says through a yawn. "I'm bushed. We're gonna take a nap, because you look like you're ready to pass out and I'm about ten steps ahead of you, and when we wake up? We're gonna sit down and start figuring out a way to find this son of a bitch before day seven."

Castiel, on his side and too close for Dean to be comfortable, or uncomfortable, gazes at Dean with wide eyes. "Then --"

"Yeah, Cas," he murmurs, eyes sliding shut, sinking into his pillow. "Yeah. But first? We sleep."


	5. Part Four

_There is a carnival. A ferris wheel. Popcorn on the ground. Laughter and the bells of music._

 _He's waiting in line; he's seventh and standing behind a woman who does not need to be buying any kind of junk food. He supposes that no one can resist the sweet charms of a candy apple._

 _He's so hungry._

 _A whole year passes -- Fall, Winter, Spring, and finally Summer again -- before he gets to the counter and asks for a candy apple. The man asks him if he wants the candy coating to be caramel or cinnamon sugar, then he asks in a British accent if he might want toffee instead. Or, he says in Italian, choose it yourself. He points to a list of flavors nailed to the side of the window._

 **Candy Apple Flavors**  
Caramel  
Toffee  
Taffy  
Cinnamon-Sugar  
Incan Gold  
Bird's Wing  
Grecian Sceptre  
Sky  
Ringing Telephone in Empty House  
Papyrus Scroll  
Ouse River Water

 _He picks sky and the man rolls the apple in it before handing it over. He reaches into his jeans for money, but the man tells him in Swahili that it's all taken care of._

 _He asks by whom. The man, now speaking in Mandarin, says that anything he wants is on the house. The whole staff knows and will get him anything he wants._

 _He hands the man $2.00 for the apple and says that he wants to pay. The man takes the money, displeased but unable to deny him._

 _Biting into his apple, which tastes like ozone and sunlight, he asks the man which ride is the best. The man says the ferris wheel._

 _He can't ride the ferris wheel, he tells the man. He has a fear of heights._

 _The man laughs._

 _"Well, that won't do. We'll have to work on that."_

 _He rides the tea cups instead._

 

It's less like a two-hour nap and more like actually sleeping until the next morning. Dean can't remember the last time he slept so long or uninterruptedly. There'd been no dreams, no revisiting Hell and the Rack. Just, nothing. Sweet, sweet nothing. Best sleep ever.

He wakes up with hair in his nose and his mouth buried against soft skin hidden behind a delicate ear, his arm thrown over Castiel like it belongs there, and for the first four or five minutes he doesn't panic about his erection. He presses his lips against warm skin and inhales sweat and the mustiness from the pillow, languid and heavy with too much sleep. He tries to remember the last time he felt so calm. Must've been years and years ago, because nothing comes to mind. Maybe when he was a kid.

But then the panic starts settling in, kicking up its feet and making itself at home in Dean's chest. He rolls away from Castiel, taking his arm with him, and gets out of bed as fast as he can. Castiel doesn't stir.

It's one thing to think _things_ about an angel, but it's another thing entirely to actually press your erection into the small of his back while he's sleeping. Time to make a strategic retreat.

Swallowing, Dean backs away from the bed and makes his way to the bathroom, where he takes care of his problem with quick, ruthless strokes. As he watches his come drip down the tiles of the shower wall, he decides to forget that he had any problem to take care of in the first place.

When he gets back to the room, clad only in a towel and jeans in hand, he finds Castiel sitting up in bed, awake. Great. He'd been banking on Castiel still being asleep.

"Hey, Cas," he says instead of 'please close your eyes and don't look at me when I change'. "Slept a little longer than we planned."

Castiel looks down at his lap where the trench coat is draped, wrinkled from sleeping in it. How hadn't Castiel shrugged that off during the night? Dean could never have slept in that bulky-ass thing. "I'm finding it… somewhat disconcerting that I am starting to require sleep."

Dean makes a bee-line for his duffle bag, which he'd thrown across the room the night before, and starts digging in it for some clean underwear and a shirt that doesn't smell like seawater. "Dude, don't be so hard on yourself. It's been a long week."

"No angel needs sleep, Dean," Castiel says, eyes wide.

He ignores Castiel and drops his towel, immediately stepping into a clean pair of tightie whities. He once dated a girl who hated them and said it was like making love to a mutant four-year old, but women just don't understand. Dean's a big fan of the TWs. He can feel Castiel's eyes on him, watching him, almost a palpable touch that traces the red and blue racing stripe encircling his waist. He shivers and shoves his head into a shirt.

"You're cooler than your run-of-the-mill angel," Dean says, muffled by the shirt. He pops his head through and works on getting his arms through the sleeves. It feels a lot smaller than it should. It probably went into the dryer when it should've air-dried.

"I think I… What if I am Falling?"

Dean snorts. "Dude, you were just welcomed back into Heaven with open arms and, in the Metatron's case, with a fuck-ton of smiles. I don't think you're Falling. And if you were, it'd be the shittiest timing ever and your timing isn't shitty."

Castiel acknowledges this simple truth with a blink.

"Do you feel an overwhelming need to eat pancakes?"

"No," Castiel says, obviously confused.

Dean nods. "Good. More for me. What about taking a shit? Need to go to the bathroom?"'

"No."

"Then I think you're okay," he says, smoothing down the shirt and absently scratching his stomach as he pulls on his jeans, relaxing as he zips them up. Although his clothes can't do a damn thing against Castiel's penetrating stare, he feels a little less jittery in them. Armor.

Castiel looks down at the sheets puddle over his shins, then slides out of bed and stands awkwardly, staring.

Dean jerks his thumb toward the door. "Fun as this has been, Bobby and Sam are probably chomping at the bit downstairs. Ready to face the music?"

Castiel's head tilts. "What music?"

"Figure of speech. C'mon," he says, already turning for the door, away from the sheets that smell like them. "I want breakfast."

The Winchester-Singer tribunal is already in session by the time Dean walks into the kitchen, Castiel trailing after him like a shadow Dean stuck to his feet with soap. Sam immediately looks up from his mug of coffee -- his fourth cup, probably -- and fixes Dean with a look that says, _naptime's over, brother mine, and we're gonna party like it's 1999. And by 'party', I mean 'plan'._

"Dude, can I have some food before you go all tactical response unit on me? I _just_ came down," Dean whines and makes a bee-line for the fridge. If Bobby doesn't have eggs, he won't have to wait a week, because he'll kill himself.

"Did I say anything?" Sam's mouth flattens into a thin, unhappy line. Didn't get much sleep by the looks of it.

Bobby has seven eggs left. _And_ bacon. Score.

"If you idgits are gonna turn this into a 'who can become a whiny bitch first' contest, you can take it outside," Bobby growls over the rim of his own mug. Knowing Bobby, it's coffee mixed with whiskey. Irish coffee with emphasis on the Irish.

"Not necessary, Bobby." Dean brings his spoils over to the stove and tosses an unwashed pan onto the front right burner, turned up to medium heat. You want a good, artery-clogging breakfast around here, you gotta make it yourself. His life is beyond unfair. "Sam's going stir-crazy and Cas has the solution."

Even with his back turned, Dean feels Sam perk up at that. He smiles and tosses the whole package of bacon into the pan, relishing the almost deafening sizzle that sounds the minute it touches the metal. There isn't a more beautiful sound in the world.

"Cas?" Sam inquires, hope coloring the name sunshine yellow.

"I have asked for Dean's help in finding Lucifer."

Dean snorts, turning the bacon. Nice sell, Cas. Who wouldn't go for that?

"That's your solution?" Bobby demands.

"It is not a solution," Castiel says, "but necessity. Lucifer needs to be found and brought to justice for his crime."

Extra burnt. Dean turns up the heat on the stove. Extra burnt bacon is the best.

Sam sighs, obviously frustrated with that answer. Dean can't see him, but he'd bet Sam's raking his hands through his hair, something he only does when he's really and truly at his wit's end. He's impatient, for a college drop-out. "Look, Cas, I'm sorry for your loss; I really am. I can't even imagine what you're going through. But going after Lucifer wasn't the kind of plan I had in mind." There's a pause. Dean feels a glare burning a hole through his back. "And what made you even agree to this?"

Dean forks the bacon from the pan and dumps it onto a paper towel to soak up the grease. "He was pretty convincing."

"… Can I have some of that?"

He cracks three eggs into the pan; the grease is perfect for frying eggs. "Like you made me coffee? Make your own, bitch."

"Jerk," Sam pouts. "So, what's the plan? Go after Lucifer. Assuming we even find him, then what?"

"Bring him to --"

"No, I got that part. _How_ is my question. Jesus Christ couldn't stop him, Cas. What makes you think that we'll do any better?"

"We are not alone. I am Gabriel's informant." Castiel says it like he has no idea what it actually makes him. "There are many things that can be done with the aid of an archangel."

"An archangel who killed Dean a hundred times just to prove a _point_."

Dean grabs a paper plate from a cabinet and tosses his bacon onto it, followed by his three eggs. Thoughtfully, he nudges his eggs on top of his incredibly burnt bacon. Breakfast of champions. His left arm is already going numb just by looking at it. Being a hunter is a fucking waste of his obviously brilliant culinary skills. He needs his own show.

Though Sam does have a point about the Trickster. Gabriel. Whatever he's calling himself these days.

"His…" Castiel's face twists and he tries again. "His methods are --"

"Twisted? Sadistic? Truculent?" Dean's convinced Sam ate a thesaurus sometime between the ages of six and eight. It would explain a lot. He leans back against the sink, plate in hand, to watch the show.

"Unorthodox," Castiel says with feeling, and the kitchen trembles briefly before subsiding with a whisper. "He may be uncouth, but he is the only one of high ranking who would mourn the demise of your race. Heaven is going after the orchestra instead of the conductor. If there is any chance of saving this world, it's by getting to Lucifer before the morning of battle."

Sam's shoulders drop and he looks heaven-ward, as if he's forgotten that he won't be getting any help from upstairs.

"If we manage to find and… subdue Lucifer before the seventh day, it may be enough to stop the war from happening," Castiel finishes, eyes wide, so damn earnest, so desperate for Sam to understand and join his merry little campaign.

Dean stabs at the yolks until they bleed yellow all over his bacon, and wonders how Sam's going to bounce back from that one.

"You really think…?" Sam's not actually asking, but thinking out loud. He usually does it when it's 2am and he's knee-deep in research and Dean is trying to get some goddamn _sleep_.

Dean shovels bacon dripping with yolk into his mouth and chews. _Oh._ Right there. If there were any reason to find Lucifer, it would be for breakfasts like this.

"Say you _wanted_ to go through with this cockamamie plan. How would you find him?" Bobby's looking at Castiel, who's starting to look a little less hunted, a little more relaxed now that they're starting to listen to him. Dean recognizes Bobby's expression. It's the one he gets when he's putting the puzzle pieces of some demon lore together and the whole picture just needs one more to be complete.

"During the first war, Lucifer was not the only angel cast out," Castiel says quietly, sounding for all the world as if the memories are still too raw to talk about in casual conversation, like they're relics from a former era. "There were others. Many of his followers were thrown down with him, his acolytes. They were all locked in the Pit, but around the year 1400, some of Lucifer's generals escaped."

Bobby barks an ugly laugh. "And the angels didn't do a damn thing about it."

Castiel looks hurt at the accusation. "There was nothing to be done. They were not wreaking havoc, nor were they hurting anyone, so we had no reason to interfere. But tabs were kept on them for years."

The room thickens with the force of Sam's growing excitement, going straight to Dean's heart in a way his eggy bacon never could. The tap of Sam's impatient fingers against the handle of his coffee mug, itching to bust out the laptop and get down to business, a tell-tale sign that Sam's on board for whatever it is they're going to do. Dean grins around his mouthful of heart attack.

"Do you know where they are now?"

Castiel tilts his head thoughtfully. "One is in the United States, but I do not know where. The locations of the other three were not privy to one of my rank."

"Below your pay grade," Bobby snorts, gulping the rest of his coffee. "Ain't that convenient."

"It is not convenient, Robert. It just is." Castiel doesn't look like he minds being at the bottom of the totem pole with no chance of moving up through the ranks. Dean would be pissed.

"Can you find the one in the states?" Dean asks, chewing.

Bobby smirks at him. "Nice of you to join the conversation, boy."

"You know me; I just like to listen."

"Since when?" Sam laughs and balls up a napkin, throwing it at him. Dean leans to his right, dodging it.

"Mad skills there, Ty Cobb."

"Bite me."

Dean turns his attention to Castiel, who's already staring at him. His heart thumps once, hard. "How about it, Cas? Can you find him?"

Castiel nods, all that divine intensity on him, his gaze unwavering and absolute. It's moments like this that remind Dean that Castiel isn't human, is about as far away from human as one can get. For some stupid reason, this non-human has thrown in with Dean. The mind boggles.

He stuffs his mouth with the last of his breakfast before he does something dumb, like bursting into tears and thanking Castiel profusely.

"Yes," Castiel says. "But I will need to gather some supplies. In order to locate him --"

"Locater spell?" Sam suggests, like it's an episode of fucking _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_.

"In a way, yes, but locating one like Moloch will require more layers than the basic ritual has."

There's a resounding crack that causes the conversation to stop dead in its tracks as Bobby's mug hits the table. Bobby fixes Castiel with a hard glare that Dean recognizes from being on the wrong side of it one too many times, so whatever Castiel wants to do must be especially stupid. It's almost fascinating to watch those eyes disappear into the shadow cast by the trucker cap visor, that mouth practically rolling back and getting lost in that jungle of a beard. Bobby will have no problem telling Castiel exactly how he feels.

True to form, Bobby doesn't disappoint. "Moloch."

Castiel nods, serious as ever. "Yes."

" _I'Molech_." Angry red infuses Bobby's cheeks; he's either extremely pissed off, or there was no coffee in that Irish coffee. "All the texts say that --"

"The texts are not incorrect," Castiel agrees with another nod.

"And you want to send these boys after him?"

"Sam and Dean are not under the age of ten years; they have no reason to fear the fire of Moloch. The purpose of finding him would be to interrogate him, not get into an altercation with him. As far as I know, he has not had contact with Hell in some time."

"As far as you know," Sam echoes pointedly, sounding a lot more put out now that Bobby's playing the role of screen door to their submarine. "That could also be above your pay grade. He might still be Lucifer's number one fan. He could be hiding Lucifer in his _basement_ for all we know! The point is, we don't and neither do you."

Poor Cas. If it were Dean gunning to take out Lucifer, Sam and Bobby would be behind him 100%, logic be damned. If he asked them for help in taking on the whole of Heaven or Hell, they'd ask him for weapons and to be pointed in the right direction. It comes of years of history, of familial ties, of trust and kinship. Excepting Dean, Castiel doesn't have any of that, and it's the saddest thing ever. Even with a bajillion brothers and sisters, Castiel has no one but himself. And Dean.

That's not gonna work. Not anymore.

"Okay, Sammy," Dean jumps in, tossing his plate into the trash and moseying over to the table. He kicks out a chair noisily and drops into it. "What better idea do you have? Did anyone have anything to bring to the table, or did you spend the whole night braiding each other's hair while Cas did all the thinking for you? Far as I see it, we've got ourselves a decent place to start."

Bobby doesn't look nearly as convinced as Dean wishes he would. "Do you know a damn thing about Moloch, Dean? Do you know the things he did?"

Dean shrugs, tossing a quick glance Castiel's way. "Don't need to. He's one of Lucifer's generals; I'm pretty sure he's not working the counter at Build-A-Bear, Bobby. Of course he's going to be a hard-ass."

"Dean," Sam says, infusing the word with all the disappointment he possibly can, and Dean's pretty much done with this conversation.

"Dude, it's scary. I know." Dean doesn't know all the shit Moloch used to get up to back in the day, but he's got a pretty vivid imagination. As much as it pains him to acknowledge, he knows that there are creatures out there a million times worse than Alistair, and he would place good money on Moloch being one of them. The crap the guy must have done to win the title of Lucifer's top man… Scary doesn't even begin to cover it. "But Lilith was scary. Hell was scary. Yellow Eyes was scary. No matter who or what we go up against, it's going to suck. But if there's a chance we can head a Heaven-Hell celebrity death match off at the pass? Then we've got to cowboy up."

He lets that sink in, then caps it off with, "We're going to take out Lucifer? This is how we do it. Just like any case -- start with witnesses and accomplices, then work our way up. We've only got a week, Sam. I'm with Cas on this one."

Sam stares, as if he's seeing Dean for the first time, as if he'd forgotten that Dean isn't completely stupid and has the rare flash of logical thinking every once in a great while.

And boom goes the dynamite.

He smirks at his brother, and then softens and regifts it as a smile for Castiel. "You going to need a lot of stuff to find this guy?"

Castiel's eyes are warm, the kind of blue found after the last snow of the season clears and leaves nothing but endless skies, the sun surging up in triumph. "I believe Robert has sufficient materials for the ritual."

"Then get to it. Clock's ticking." He gets to his feet and stretches, flushed with the victory of a damn good breakfast and a half-decent plan of action, not to mention an almost entire day's nap. All signs are pointing toward a good day. It's been too long since he's had one of those.

Bobby stands with a grunt and beckons Castiel to follow him out of the kitchen. "Well, let's see what I've got."

"Thank you," Castiel rumbles politely, trench coat swirling around his ankles as he makes a quiet exit.

Sam watches Castiel leave, head tilted in an almost exact replica of Castiel's shtick, and then turns a curious stare on Dean.

"What's going on with you two?"

It's not accusatory, just quizzical, but Dean really needs to be elsewhere.

"What do you mean?"

"You and Cas," Sam clarifies, just… curious. Innocent. It makes Dean clam up in fear, like the lid's been blown off something that even Dean doesn't know. Somewhere inside himself that little old man from every movie is saying, "Ah, looks like a storm's a-comin'."

"Going on? What are you talking about? There's nothing going on!" That doesn't sound defensive at all.

Sam shakes his head, squinting at Dean like he's an equation that Sam just can't wrap his Stanford-enhanced mind around. "No, there's something. Something happened before you showed up to stop… Lilith. You were worried about Cas."

"He was going to die for us," Dean snaps, shifting unhappily, legs coiling with the need to _leave the kitchen, STAT_. "The dude gave up everything for me. Of course I was worried."

"It's more than that," Sam pushes, like he always does. A grin suddenly curls his mouth and he's wearing his 'Dean's gone and done something hilariously awful and I'm never gonna let him forget it' face. Dean hates that face. "Dude, do you --"

Nope. Not happening. "Whatever it is, the answer's no."

"Oh my god, you --"

"Don't even _think_ about finishing that sentence, Sam, I mean it." He points at Sam, ready to shove his finger in Sam's _eye_ if it comes down to it, but Sam subsides with a peculiar smile.

"You know that if you ever needed to tell me anything…"

Dean groans, because _really_? "Dude, there's nothing to tell!"

"Well, excuse me for jumping to conclusions!" Sam says with an eye roll, that weird smile still plastered on his face. "But when someone is willing to die for you, then invites you to Jesus Christ's funeral to meet the family? I think I'm entitled to a little speculation."

He's done with this conversation. He was done with it before it even started. There's nothing to have a conversation about; there's absolutely no reason for him to be on the stand in Judge Winchester's courtroom with one hand on the Bible. Whatever… issues he might have had were taken care of this morning. Except he's forgotten _all_ about that. "So, you coming with us to see Moloch?"

Sam, for once in his life, lets it go, and there is nothing in the entire universe to measure against Dean's gratitude. "I can if you want me to, but I feel like I should be laying down some new wards around here."

Dean stiffens. "You think someone might…?"

"You don't?"

Dean would be more concerned if someone _didn't_ come around looking to pick a fight. Their lives are an endless rumble -- there's always someone knocking at the door, ready to take it to the parking lot. Before, they had the tentative help of the angel brigade, which would come to aid them only as a last resort, lest their Righteous Man die and be unable to fight their battles for them. Now, with the attention of the angels on other things -- other _stupid_ things, like war with Hell -- it's just them. And Castiel, but he hasn't been part of the angel brigade for a while.

"Bobby and I were going over some things we found in an old text he had lying around," Sam continues, sliding the book in question out from beneath his elbow. Dean hadn't noticed it. "We found symbols. Sigils. Older than anything I've ever seen. I think one or two of them are, like, incredibly beefed up protection wards."

Sam's flushed with the triumph of discovery. It's a small pleasure in an otherwise unpleasant time, and if Dean were anyone else he'd let Sam have it. But, he's not.

"Might want to have Cas check those out before you blow up your head, or call down an archangel," he says brightly, but there's a modicum of truth to it. Sam's a fucking genius, but if he's not entirely sure what ancient sigils mean? No sense tempting fate. There's been enough of that lately and there will certainly be more.

Sam makes a face. "You think I wouldn't thoroughly research something before using it? Oh ye of little faith."

"Faith?" Dean snorts. "Dude, faith has nothing to do with it. I'm just being practical."

"Since when?"

Good question.

There's a rustle behind him, an explosion of displaced air hitting the back of his neck to announce a grand arrival. "Robert has all the required components needed to successfully complete the ritual. I will begin immediately."

"Cas, c'mere for a sec." He crooks his fingers, stepping aside to give Castiel some room; he's still close enough to get a whiff of sharp, mountain air. He shivers. "Sam's looking to put up some wards."

Sam opens the book to a marked page and points. "Bobby and I were thinking about this one, or maybe this one. It resembles the sigil for 'protect', but there are parts of it that we couldn't recognize."

Castiel peers over Sam's shoulder, then steps away abruptly like he's remembering every personal bubble lesson Dean's ever taught him. "Human wards are… diluted. The symbols have evolved over time as those who invented them were forgotten. In their purest form, your wards are names."

"Whose names?" The interested glint is back in Sam's eyes, only now it's more like an explosion. "Is it someone you know? Is it yours? Are all the angels' names sigils?"

Moving closer to the book, Castiel places two reverent fingers on top of one of the sigils, running the pads of them over it with all the care he doesn't show anything or anyone else. Except maybe Dean. "The wards I have personally seen you use were given to Humankind by Gadiel."

Dean blinks at the name. He doesn't recognize it at all. "Is that a good or bad thing?"

It wins him a not-quite-but-almost-a-smile. "It's good, Dean. His name will not lead you to harm."

Dean's got to hand it to old Gadiel; he hasn't failed them yet.

"May I have that?"

At first, Dean has no idea what Castiel is asking for, then starts in surprise as Sam hands him a butter knife from the table, streaks of spread marring the silver, bits of what might be muffin or bread stuck to it. Were there muffins this morning? Why didn't he know about the muffins?

Castiel nods in thanks at Sam and then turns his attention to his wrist, dragging the serrated edge of the knife across it. It would take a lot to cut skin with a butter knife, but Castiel's flesh parts easily beneath the dull edge of the blade, spilling red onto his coat sleeve and the table.

"Cas, hey --" Dean starts, lifting a hand to do something, because they've been here before and are revisiting it way too soon, but it's done. Castiel hands him the blade, eyes gentle, and then moves to the wall closest to the table.

There's _so_ much blood, just like back in the Green Room, practically pouring out in gallons all over the floor. Castiel pays it no heed -- he's an angel; why would he need to worry about severing an artery? -- and fingerpaints all over the dirty white of the kitchen wall, dragging his fingers up, down, over, and back around until the sigil in Sam's book begins to take form.

"Holy…" Sam trails off, eyes wide, completely rapt on Castiel as the guy continues to merrily draw with his own blood.

Castiel finishes off the sigil with a flourish at the top, not unlike his Angel Begone spell, but instead of a triangle it looks more like a 'P' with an 'X' through it.

Air blows out through Sam's teeth. "Chi ro."

"Yes," Castiel says softly, reverently, pleased that Sam recognizes whatever it is. "This is the name of Raguel, eldest of the archangels, older than even Michael. Closest to God."

The blood is drying on Castiel's hand, odd shapes that flake off when he brings his fingers up to touch the giant sigil, and Dean can't help but stare at it as Castiel begins murmuring something too low for Dean to hear, or even understand. It's gibberish, but it's probably important gibberish.

" _Aldon od noar v'nazps od coraxo oln micalzo_ ," Castiel intones gravely, the fun P-X thing flashing with bright light once before disappearing, leaving Dean to blink away the dots he gets when he looks at the sun for too long. "You are under the greatest protection that can be afforded a human."

There's something in the way Castiel says it that tells Dean this isn't just the most kick-ass protection ward ever, but much more. He can't place the inflection in the word 'afforded', but it settles deep in his gut like the few minutes that follow being punched. He can breathe again, but it hurts like a bitch and he'll feel it twice as much in the morning.

Castiel fixes Dean with a calm look, but Dean's eyes are on the sluggishly-bleeding wound in the soft skin of Castiel's wrist. One last wave of blood pumps out before the flesh begins to knit back together, sealing up like a Ziploc bag without so much as a mark or scar. All that's left is smooth skin and crusting blood.

"Are you ready?" Castiel inquires and purposely rolls his wrist.

Dean jerks in surprise. "What? No, I -- Let me get my stuff." He beats a hasty retreat, quickly getting the hell out of there before he loses his shit.

This is new. He's never cared when someone hurts themselves in the name of the hunt; he and Sam have been cutting their own skin to use their blood for years. It's never been an issue. It's necessity. Blood is life; it's the essential part of anything and everything. It's fact. It sucks that someone's got to feel the sting in order to get some of it, but that's the way it is.

Watching Castiel use his own blood in order to protect them, after all he's given so far, is just fucking unfair. Wrong.

Rubbing a hand roughly over his lips, he glances to his right and catches sight of movement in the living room, a shadow skittering across the wall.

It's Bobby, walking slowly around the perimeter of what must be the ritual set-up. Flame leaps up from the twenty-odd votive candles scattered randomly inside the ring of congealing blood stretched across the floor. Dean's lip curls at the sight of it. Not too hard to guess who drew it and how.

"Hey," Dean says, carefully drawing closer, minding the blood circle. One little smudge and the whole thing's kaput. No need to ruin Castiel's painstakingly perfect work. No need to call him back in and have him tap another vein to fix a mistake.

Bobby looks tired, but then Bobby always looks tired. Dean never met Bobby's wife and knows nothing about her other than that she was a looker, a fact gleaned from old photos hidden around the house, but he'd bet that the dark circles under Bobby's eyes weren't there when she'd been alive. The same for his dad; he remembers when Dad's face was free of frown lines, of exhausted shadows.

He knows that if he lives through the week, through the upcoming battle, he'll have those lines and shadows, too.

"You sure about this?" Bobby asks gruffly, scratching at his beard, and Dean watches the movement with a fascination he's never been able to shake. When Dean was little and Dad started leaving him and Sam with Bobby so he could continue the hunt, Dean had believed that Bobby had a cache of weapons in his beard. He couldn't wait to grow up so he could have a hidden arsenal of his own. Dean was obviously borderline retarded as a kid.

"I have to be."

"Don't have to be anything," Bobby says pointedly, in that way he has that makes Dean feel like his dumbass kid self. "Don't think you know what you're getting into, frankly."

Dean shrugs. "And I was gonna do what for the week? Sit around with my thumb up my ass?"

"Your leisurely activities are none of my business, boy."

"Ha ha."

Bobby stops his pacing, feet near a perfectly-rendered symbol that looks like the bastard lovechild of a cow and a spatula, and fixes Dean with a grave stare. "Dean, I know you've been through some mighty terrifying shit --"

"Bobby, don't."

But Bobby's going to say his piece, because his lips roll into his beard and Dean recognizes that look for what it is. That look is the reason Dean doesn't leave sacred tomes next to the toilet anymore.

"I know Alistair was worse than anything I can think of --"

He can't hear this. He can't think about this, or agree with Bobby, because _yes_ , Alistair was literally the worst thing Dean's ever come up against and he's been trying his damnedest to forget that. To forget the shit Alistair used to say, sing, make him do. Did to him. Bobby has no idea; even the worst thing Bobby can think of is nowhere near the reality of it.

He swallows thickly, struggling to breathe properly. "Bobby, seriously, shut it."

"Moloch is worse," Bobby growls, pushing past Dean's strangled protest. "Alistair was damn awful, but he wasn't anywhere near as bad as Moloch. Do you know what you have to do, what you've gotta be, in order to be the Devil's right-hand man? He used to do things to _kids_ , Dean."

He hasn't allowed himself to imagine it. Worse than Alistair? He'd rather remain blissfully unaware until the actual face-to-face introduction.

It's shit like this that makes Dean want to just give up, because what's the point? Does he really want to fight for a god who allows things like Azazel and Alistair and Moloch to roam free? It's obvious God doesn't care that what makes little kids afraid of the dark is actually crawling around in the shadows at night.

He rakes his hands through his hair, gripping hard, and rests his forehead against the skin of the inside of his arms.

"Robert is right."

Dropping his hands, Dean turns to see Castiel and Sam standing in the doorway, both of their expressions drawn. Sam tries to muster up a smile for him, but it ends up being another one of his unintentionally hilarious faces, a cross somewhere between a grimace, a grin, and a yawn. Dean barely manages to bite back a hysterical giggle, his heart still pounding to beat the band from Bobby's pep talk.

Castiel steps into the room, the light from the candles bathing his pale skin in fluid orange. He stops right at the edge of the blood circle, the toe of his left shoe hovering just over the line. "I would recount for you Moloch's many transgressions, but we do not have the luxury of time. His reputation is not an exaggeration; in fact, it's understated. Alistair's crimes pale in comparison to Moloch's."

That's exactly the reason that Castiel needs to learn how to lie.

Licking his lips, Castiel looks as if he's going to walk right over to where Dean stands on the other side of the circle, but stays right where he is, looking as guilty as anything. "I was not… thinking clearly last night, Dean, when I asked this of you. When I asked you this morning. I think it would be best if I went alone."

Bobby grunts in approval, which is funny, because if it were Bobby being asked he'd jump on it in a second.

"What? Cas, c'mon!" A small part of him is relieved, but most of him is just plain offended. So, what, Castiel doesn't think he can handle this because of Alistair? Fuck that noise. "Dude, I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to help."

"Did you?" Castiel asks, knowing very well that Dean's mental state yesterday was tenuous at best, head full of everything that had happened, that's going to happen. "It was wrong of me to ask for your help when your exhaustion, confusion and rage would have you answer differently than you normally would. I will go to see Moloch alone, and when I get back we'll discuss our next move."

For the longest time, no one says anything. Sam's not going to say anything to refute Castiel and Bobby sure as hell isn't, and Dean's heart is stuck in his throat.

"No."

With the utmost care, Dean lifts his foot and steps into the circle, picking his way through the littering of candles to get to the other side, mindful of the sigils drawn.

"Dean!" Sam groans. "You're going to ruin it!"

"Shut up and go draw some wards," Dean snaps, lifting his gaze from the floor to meet Castiel's. If he needs to do stupid stunts, like stepping into a blood circle full of Enochian sigils, to prove a point, then he damn well will.

He comes to a stop at the very edge of the circle, bare inches away from where Castiel's standing, close enough to feel the heat radiating from him. Holding Castiel's gaze and trying to find some kind of chink in that already battered armor, he remembers Jimmy's little slip about what it was like to be a vessel, about it feeling like he was chained to a comet. Staring at Castiel now, feeling that searing heat, Dean can't help but wonder if maybe Jimmy had it all wrong. That maybe it wasn't like being chained to the comet, but having swallowed it and trying to deal with all that fire and speed and light boiling inside.

"I'm coming with you, Cas," Dean says through gritted teeth, staring into those ridiculously blue eyes, watching them flash with the light from a comet's tail. "You asked me for help, and I told you that we'd find that sonuvabitch before day seven. If meeting with his number one fan is how it starts, then fine. You want to do all the talking? Knock yourself out. But I'm coming with you. And if you feed me any more bullshit about it being too dangerous for my poor nerves to handle, I will punch you in the face. You won't feel it, and I'll break my hand again, but you'll get the sentiment behind it."

Castiel says nothing for the longest time and Dean thinks for a second that Castiel's going to punch _him_ in the face for being such a whiny brat. Instead of putting Dean through a wall, Castiel blinks, losing the staring contest with a heavy sigh, mouth imperceptibly curling in what might be reluctant humor. Or maybe affection.

"You are the most cumbersome creature I've ever met."

Dean's grinning so hard that it feels like his face is going to rip right in half. "I'm just keeping you on your toes, Cas. Wouldn't want you to get bored."

"I assure you, Dean, you could never bore me," Castiel says, all gloom and doom serious, but his eyes sparkle with good humor. It makes Dean grin more, if that's even physically possible. His cheeks ache something fierce.

A throat clears pointedly, and Dean turns to look at Bobby, who clearly isn't happy about the plan still being a go. "If you assholes are about done?"

Heat explodes across his skin, his face, and Dean mumbles his agreement, stepping carefully out of the blood circle just as Castiel steps in, brushing gently against Dean as he goes. The sigils crackle and smoke as Castiel's foot touches down, as loud as a dog welcoming home its master.

He takes a few more steps back to watch the proceedings, ignoring Sam's blatantly obvious grin -- the one from five minutes ago in the kitchen, except now it's about seventeen times more obnoxious -- and keeping his eyes on Castiel, who lifts his hands, palms parallel to the floor, and closes his eyes.

 _"Apila a-ai-om ef I'Molech. Ia-ial od insi oroch li othil ol nor-molap. Zod a-ma ra na ii esla girosab-e."_

If Sam had been the one to find the words, to write them down and say them aloud, Dean would have laughed and laughed. Made fun of the way they sound, the way Sam stumbled over the unfamiliar syllables. Sam is, without a doubt, the smartest motherfucker to ever walk the planet, but when it comes to pronunciation? Guy's back in the third grade.

With Castiel, it's like that breeze on the first day of spring. Which sounds fucking corny as hell, but he looks forward to it every year. It always seems to fall on either a Thursday or Saturday, an unrepentantly sunny day without a cloud in the sky, and there's always the softest of breezes that starts in the morning, warm and soothing, and builds in the afternoon. On these days, Sam usually sleeps in while Dean goes out and sits on the hood of the Impala, just taking it in, alone in the parking lot of some motel.

He has no idea what Castiel's saying. For all Dean knows, it could be angelic for "I'm a porn star", but it sounds beautiful. It sounds like that breeze.

The sigils on the floor hiss in response to Castiel's invocation, the looped shapes taking up a bright blue glow, washing Castiel's skin out and casting half of his face into shadow. It pushes outward, the light spreading like water in the air, filling up everything and shoving up against Dean's chest, forcing him back a step. Dean watches, breathless, as the blue of Castiel's eyes lightens until its cyan, pastel, and finally white, before it all comes crashing back into Castiel, who stumbles backward. The light disappears, sucked back into the sigils, which are now the color of ash.

"Dude," Dean whistles. Now _that's_ a show. He turns to Sam. "That was a million times better than that shitty _Lord of the Rings_ movie you made me watch. Better effects, too."

Sam ignores him, because Sam's a giant nerd who'd rather fuck Frodo Baggins than a hot-blooded woman. "Cas, are you okay?"

Castiel shakes it off and opens his eyes, which are still that freaky powder-white. His pupils are gone. Dean's never going to sleep again. "I am… tracking him."

"Never seen a spell like that," Bobby grunts at Castiel, grudgingly impressed, eyeing the ashes on the floor like they'll never come out of the old wood.

"It is Enochian," Castiel says absently, head tilting, ear toward the ceiling, like he can hear something the rest of them can't. He probably can. "I have found him."

Dean tenses, ready. "Where?"

Castiel's neck straightens, and he blinks, turning eyes a familiar shade of blue his way. "Cheyenne, Wyoming."

Humming to himself under his beard, Bobby sits on the arm of a chair that has been part of the Singer Living Room Set since Dean first stepped into the house as a kid. "'Bout a ten-hour drive."

"Only ten hours?" Sam asks, incredulous. "Isn't that kind of convenient? Almost _too_ convenient?"

"Dude, it makes perfect sense," Dean says, because it _does_. "It's the biggest state with the smallest population. Besides, no one in the history of the world has ever said, 'I have a vacation coming up; I need two weeks in Wyoming.' No tourism, practically no one around, and a million places to hide. Perfect sense."

Sam gives him a look. "Only you would think so."

"You just don't understand my logic," Dean says and makes a kissy noise. "It's bulletproof."

Castiel steps out of the circle and as he does all the ash on the floor disappears, leaving not so much as a hint that it was there in the first place. It more than likely has nothing to do with Castiel wanting to be tidy as much as Bobby was probably thinking 'clean that shit up' at Castiel for the last ten minutes.

"If you are still set on coming --"

"I am."

A hand drops onto his shoulder, the palm heavy and the fingers spread wide, and he'd know that bear paw anywhere. He peers up into Sam's ugly mug, unable to help the grin that curls his face at the fear he sees in Sam's squinty eyes. "Don't worry, Samantha. You can come next time."

Bobby silently shoves a small bag at him and Dean can hear the clink and swish of canisters full of holy water. "Be careful. Your angel'd better be watching you at all times."

"You make it sound like he's a friggin' _dog_ ," Dean mutters, slipping his arm through the strap and hefting it securely onto his shoulder. Worse comes to worse, he can throw it at Moloch, like a holy hand grenade. He clenches his fingers around it, feeling the waxed edges bite into his palm. "We'll be fine."

Castiel stands at his shoulder, steadfast. "I will let nothing happen to him."

"Better not." Bobby steps back, arms crossing, glaring at the both of them from under his hat. "I'll be calling some people, letting them know what's going on."

"Maybe you ought to wait on that," Dean suggests. "Don't want to get everyone all up in arms before we know what the hell's going on. Wait until we get back."

"You have six hours before the phone's in my hand."

Sam snorts and claps his hand over Bobby's shoulder, nodding at Dean. "The wards will all be up by the time you make your triumphant return."

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean spies Castiel's index and middle fingers in their double whammy position, heading for his face, and he manages to eke the last word into the conversation, which must frustrate Sam to no end.

"Don't wait up."


	6. Part Five

When he opens his eyes, he's staring at a white picket fence. An actual white picket fence. The paint isn't even chipping. He's never actually seen one of these before, but he's heard about them on TV and read about them in fairy tales.

The house, itself, looks like it's on the cover of some catalogue, a perfect little one family, white with red shutters and a red door. The grass, which is way too green for him to even handle, has been recently mowed and Dean inhales it, sweet and light. There are even sunflowers, crawling up the side of the house, giant beasts that he has half a mind to whisper "Christo" at.

"Dude." He turns to Castiel, who surveys the place like he's about to lay siege. "Seriously?"

"The ritual would not have steered us wrong."

Snorting, Dean turns around to take a look at the street. It's… cute. Adorable, even. Across the street in front of another cookie-cutter house, a woman is tending to a rhododendron bush while her husband uses a hose to water the lawn. They're both wearing khaki shorts.

The husband lifts a hand and waves at Dean, who can't do anything except wave back, feeling so out of place he might as well have a sign around his neck that reads I SAY THE WORD 'FUCK' AND I KNOW WHAT ALCOHOL TASTES LIKE.

As if on cue, two children come out of the house, a boy and a girl, both clad in brightly-colored bathing suits. Dean squints and can see the Spiderman pattern on the boy's swim trunks. They immediately run to their father, who sprays them with the hose. The woman pauses in her gardening to laugh at their delighted shrieks.

The kids retreat, regroup, and put up a united front against their enemy, their thin, pale shoulders braced for battle, little legs marching forward. The girl, in her hot pink one-piece, takes her brother by the hand and rushes at their father, who again turns the hose on them. It doesn't deter them; the girl throws up her free hand to shield her face, her other hand gripping her brother's tightly, and pushes on until their dad is forced to drop the hose. He gets wet anyway. The kids tackle him to his freshly-watered lawn, wrapping their soaked limbs around him as he laughs and laughs and laughs.

Dean swallows thickly and looks away, heart lurching. He's not jealous. This is the reason he fights demons and shit, so that family across the street can goof around on their front lawn. So when those kids go to bed at night, they can sleep without fear.

Turning his back on that touching scene but still able to hear the family laughing, he catches sight of what looks like a school halfway down the street. The yellow bricks stand out, but it's overshadowed by the giant jungle gym. There's a mother walking in front of it, pushing a baby carriage. An ice cream truck turns onto the street, merrily pumping out some carnival tune as it stops for three kids wearing shirts with cartoon characters on them.

Oh. Well, now it makes total sense. The neighborhood's a fucking smorgasbord for the guy.

"Can you sense him?" Dean asks, knocking shoulders with Castiel, who hasn't taken his eyes off of Moloch's house. Number 117.

"He is here," Castiel says, lifting his gaze to the roof. The perfectly-shingled roof. Dean's really starting to hate this place.

"Okay," Dean says, rolling his shoulders. "How are we gonna do this? Want me to knock on the door, see if I can pass off as some random guy on the street, looking for directions? Maybe offer him some Girl Scout cookies?"

Castiel stares blankly at him. Right. Human reference.

"Or, we could just kick the door down." In a neighborhood where no one's probably even seen a fight on _television_.

Nodding, obviously happy with Dean's shitty plan, Castiel starts forward, creepy-angel-stare fixed on the red door. Dean watches him go, feeling like he should call the police before everyone else does and give them a heads-up.

But before Castiel can knock on the door, or destroy it, it opens. Castiel's hand lifts, fingers splayed, palm out, and Dean is already running.

"CAS, WAIT --"

He can't be more than seven, not at that height, which is barely up to Dean's thigh. The hair is too gold, too curly, too pure, and the face that peers at them from under those golden curls is too innocent, eyes too wide and blue. He's wearing a shirt with the Justice League on it, and his Velcro shoes light up.

Gripping Castiel's wrist, stilling it, Dean tries to catch his breath as he stares into the bright gaze of the little boy before them. "Cas. Dude. No."

Carefully, the boy takes the brick stairs one at a time until his light-up sneakers hit the paved walkway and he's standing in front of Dean and Castiel, head tilted back to get a good look. The boy's head tips curiously and Dean has to smother a laugh at the familiar tic, his hand still clenched around Castiel's wrist.

The boy smiles up at Dean, who automatically smiles back, because the kid's fucking cute as anything.

"DADDY!!! STRANGER DANGER!!!"

Dean hates kids.

"Kid, no, we're not --"

"STRANGER DANGER!!!" But the brat's just _standing_ there. Cute kid, but dumber than a pile of rocks.

The dad from across the street ushers his wife and kids into their house before -- heading straight for Dean and Castiel. And some lady next door is coming outside, cordless phone in hand. Perfect. She's probably calling Chris Hansen.

From the open door, a man spills out onto the stairs, eyes wide in a mix of fear and rage.

It's a look Dean once saw in his dad's eyes on a werewolf hunt gone wrong. It had been Dean's first foray into the profession; he remembers how heavy the rifle was, how the silver bullets in the chamber weighed it down. He couldn't hold it steadily enough, had been too slow, too scared, and the wolf had seized the opportunity. It had been the second and last time he ever saw John Winchester terrified.

It's the look the man has now, wild around the eyes with the need to protect his child. His truly stupid child with no self-preservation instincts whatsoever.

"Sweetheart, are you okay?" The man demands breathlessly, dropping to his knees in front of the boy and taking him by the shoulders. The dude's going to get grass stains on his khakis. "Did these men touch you?"

"What?! No!" Dean protests, offended. He may not be wearing a fucking varsity jacket, but he sure as hell doesn't look like a pedophile.

"Sweetie?" Prompts the man, pointedly ignoring Dean. The boy grins and shakes his head violently, whipping it from side to side the way kids do. The tension in the man's shoulders disappears and he sags in relief, like his strings have just been cut. "Then why were you shouting?"

The boy beams. "You said -- you said to shout when I don't know people, like this: STRANGER DANGER!!"

Sighing, the man picks up the kid and gently knocks their heads together, reluctantly smiling at the kid's resulting laugh. "Good job, kiddo." He waves the lady next door away with a rueful grin, then turns to wave at the guy standing in the middle of the street. "I've got it, Paul!"

Paul nods, waves back, and heads for his house.

"Sorry about this one," the man says with a smile. "I've been teaching him what to do if he's ever approached by a stranger. He was _supposed to go to Paul's for help_." He punctuates that by digging his nose into the boy's neck, eliciting peals of laughter.

Castiel looks like he swallowed a bucket of knives.

"Uh, no problem." Big problem. "We're sorry about scaring him. Right, Cas?" He squeezes Castiel's wrist once in warning. No baby-smiting today.

"Yes." Thank you, Mr. Helpful.

The man's smile slips and his hold on the kid tightens, quiet suspicion entering his eyes. "So, what can I do for you, gentlemen?"

Releasing Castiel's wrist, Dean steps forward with his friendliest smile tacked on firmly. "Sir, why don't we take this --"

"Moloch."

" -- inside." Kids are great. It's Castiel that he hates.

Moloch isn't looking at Dean anymore, or even his own kid. That angry-afraid look is back ten-fold, but for some reason it's not for Moloch's own safety. The white-knuckled grip on his son speaks volumes, and it twists something inside Dean until it's so braided and tight that it feels like suffocation.

"Hey," Dean says hoarsely, reaching out and putting a gentle hand on the boy's back. From the circle of Moloch's arms, the boy cranes his head around to look at Dean, blue eyes wide. "We're just here to talk. That's all."

Pressing his son's golden head to his chest, Moloch takes a step back toward the house, away from them. "No. No, you can't be here! I'm done with all that!"

Dean holds up his hands. If _Moloch_ starts screaming "stranger danger", Dean's just going to call it a day.

"Dude, calm down," he says slowly, like he's handling a friggin' rabid lion. "It's okay. We just have a couple of questions for you."

Moloch's kid squirms out of his father's arms and stares up at Dean, eyes wide like he's the most fascinating grown-up ever. And, well, with the kind of people the kid's been around in Stepfordland, he probably is.

The boy purses his lips thoughtfully and moves around Dean, studying him, big eyes taking in the worn jeans, the calloused hands, the confused expression.

"Andy…" Moloch whispers, unable to move, unable to stop his son from walking circles around a demon-hunter.

The boy, Andy, stops in front of Dean, then solemnly reaches out to tug on the hem of Dean's shirt. "'Cuse me."

Dean casts a glance at Castiel and then bends down until he's eye-level with the kid. "Yeah?"

"Are you Superman?"

He probably should never have come down for breakfast this morning, and when he looks to Castiel for some help -- because what do you even say to that? -- Castiel just stares blankly at him. All God's angels are fucking useless.

Moloch finally snaps into motion, sweat dotting his pale cheeks, and he takes Andy's little hand away from Dean's shirt, holding it tightly in his own. He gestures desperately at the house, turning pleading eyes on Dean, like he'll save Moloch's kid from the wrath of the angel standing silently on the perfectly-trimmed lawn.

"Can we take this inside?" Moloch doesn't wait for an answer, just picks up his kid and all but high-tails it into the house. He leaves the door open, which is smart, because there's really no way Moloch's getting rid of them now.

Dean turns to Castiel, who stares at the open doorway with a stare so intense that Dean's half-waiting for it to burst into flame. "Dude, come on. It's not like this guy's a threat."

"He was Lucifer's top general," Castiel reminds him, eyes still on the doorway.

"He's wearing _Birkenstocks_ , Cas." Closed-toe, thank fuck, and that might be the gayest thought he's ever had. "The guy's about as dangerous as his kid. I don't think we have anything to worry about; he's scared as shit of you."

Castiel finally looks away from the doorway and turns bright eyes onto Dean. There's something lurking there that Dean can't name, but it makes his gut tighten. He used to be terrified of Castiel's stare; there's nothing worse than having a friggin' _angel_ silently judge you, but Castiel hasn't done it for a while. Not since that shit with Alistair landed him in a hospital bed, Castiel keeping vigil at his side.

"His child is an abomination."

"Cas," he tries again, because this just doesn't seem to be sinking in. "Cas, he's a _kid_. We don't kill kids."

Before Dean can even try and decipher that look, Castiel turns back to the house and nods. "I will not harm neither Moloch nor his child. But you need to understand, Dean, this new life does not excuse Moloch's past crimes."

He can't help but smile and throw his arm around Castiel, gripping the arm of the trench coat in an odd parody of Castiel's mark on his own bicep. "Dude, sometimes you've got to forgive and forget. You're talking to _the_ most colossal fuck-up this side of the Moon. I've done a lot of stupid things in my life, but you guys still picked me to be your Righteous Man."

Castiel gives him an offended look. "It was always you, Dean."

"Yeah, why is that? Gandhi's schedule too busy?"

"You are the best man I know," Castiel says bluntly, and that stops Dean in his tracks pretty fucking quick. "You are the best man I have ever known. I think that even if it weren't you, it would still be you."

Whoa. Whoa, wait a second. Wait a fucking _second_ \--

Andy decides it would be great to stand in the doorway, little hands bunched into fists, and shout, "Mr. Kent, you can come in now!"

Dean hates kids. Especially this one.

Castiel ducks his head, but Dean catches the bare edge of what might be an amused smile, and he watches the tails of the trench coat sway as Castiel takes the stairs into the house.

"You must be Jimmy!" Andy chirps at Castiel, following him inside and leaving Dean to stand staring after them.

How is this his life?

 

The interior's just as creepily adorable as the outside, all off-white walls with complementary furniture, spacious but still claustrophobic, cluttered with knick-knacks, toys strewn across the carpet like mines waiting to be stepped on. Framed photographs line the walls in the too-bright living room, which is where Moloch leads them. Pictures of Andy as a baby, at the zoo, at the beach, at Disney World with Mickey, with Moloch. It's not as weird as it probably should be; it's sweet and kind of sad, like the dude's atoning for all the kids he killed by loving his own.

By one of the windows is another photo; the sunlight catches the glass of the frame. From what Dean can see, which isn't much because the glare is so bright, it's of a woman. Must be Moloch's wife, although he can't see any motherly touches around the house.

Andy sidles up to Dean and takes his hand, leading him over to the couch. He makes sure Dean's sitting before rushing out of the room, shouting for Dean to wait because he's "not ready."

The second Andy's gone, Moloch turns to them, face drawn and hands trembling, already resigned to whatever fate he thinks he deserves. "Please, whatever you're here to do… leave him out of it. He has nothing to do with… He's innocent."

Castiel cocks his head, eyes darting to Dean and then to Moloch. "We have no intention of harming you or your son. Dean already explained the reason for our visit."

Moloch looks at Dean, who shrugs. Looks like it's time to play Good Cop-Bad Cop. Or, knowing them, Bad Cop - Cryptic Asshole That Drops Bombs During Inappropriate Times. "Just here to ask questions, not here to judge. But if the circumstances were different? I'd have ganked you ten minutes ago." At the wide-eyed expression of horror, Dean reminds him, "Dude. I said if the circumstances were different. You're safe."

"You'll forgive me if I don't believe that," Moloch spits, curling in on himself and practically disappearing before Dean's eyes. He can't reconcile this whiny, sniveling _dad_ with the monster he'd built up in his mind. Then again, Dean (hopefully) doesn't have kids, so he really can't understand where Moloch's coming from.

Castiel is standing in front of a photo of Andy at Sea World, studying it with all the concentration of an art major jerking off in front of the Mona Lisa. "You'll forgive me if I find it hard to believe you are a father."

All the blood drains out of Moloch's face. Dean feels no pity; someone had to say it.

"It's… ironic," Castiel continues, rolling the word around in his mouth, getting a feel for it. "I wonder what made you… choose this path."

Castiel may be an angel, but he's the best bad cop Dean's ever seen, politely twisting the knife in Moloch's chest, bringing up a past Moloch has obviously been trying to forget without even making it a big deal. It's cutthroat. He likes it.

"I'M ALMOST READY!!" Andy shouts from wherever he is in the house. Dean cracks a smile. Kid's a dumbass, but he's adorable. Almost as cute as Sam'd been at that age.

Shoulders dropping, Moloch gazes pleadingly at Castiel. "Please… Just… If you're really here to ask questions, then ask them and go. I'm done with the before, okay? I'm not proud of it, and I'll never atone for it, but I'm done with it."

The judging stare that Dean recognizes is back, and he can almost feel the weight of it as it comes to a rest on Moloch, heavy blue like a boatload of seawater crushing the guy. Castiel's definitely got a knack for this sort of thing and would probably be a riot to have on cases. Sam can be the good cop, Dean the bad cop, and Castiel the woodchipper guy from _Fargo_. They can't lose.

Finally, Castiel blinks. "Have you --"

Andy decides it's the perfect time to be ready and comes barreling into the living room, a large red 'S' emblazoned on his tiny chest and a cape trailing after him, this little blue-and-red _thing_ that poses proudly for them, chest puffed out and arms akimbo. He beams at Dean. "Look, Mr. Kent! I look just like you!"

Grinning, Dean pats the couch next to him. "C'mon, Man of Steel."

"LET'S PLAY A GAME!!" Andy yells, running out of the room again, cape billowing behind him, making it look like he's actually flying. After a beat, he comes pounding back in and throws his arms around Moloch's legs. "Thank you for inviting Superman, daddy." That said, he's gone again.

Moloch watches his son leave, then turns to Dean, deciding that Dean's the one running the show and keeping the angel in line. "Would you… He seems to really like you. If I… If I speak to the angel, will you --"

He takes pity on the guy. "I'll keep an eye on him."

Pale with relief, Moloch motions for Castiel to follow him. Bright blue eyes find his and Dean hopes that whatever Castiel sees is enough to remind him _not_ to kill Moloch.

As he watches the tails of the trench coat disappear into the doorway, he realizes Moloch never offered them refreshments. Worst Stepford dad ever. He opens his mouth to complain, but stops himself. If he were Moloch, he wouldn't offer them anything, either.

He settles into the couch, plush fabric giving beneath him, and sighs, eyes closing. Fuck, but this is a comfortable couch. He's totally going to steal it. Or maybe Moloch will just _give_ it to them as a bribe to get them to leave. Normally, he's not one to accept bribes, because if you can't do something on your own than money or whatever you're offering isn't gonna fucking help, but he'd take this couch in a heartbeat.

"Oof!" His eyes fly open as a squirming weight drops into his lap. Andy pays no attention to Dean's discomfort -- obviously doesn't care about the knee he's digging into Dean's nads. The kid flails and kills any hope of Dean reproducing as he struggles to find a comfortable spot on Dean's left leg.

"Okay, Mr. Kent," Andy says cheerfully, pointing to the coffee table where a DVD of _DC Universe Scene-It_ is sitting. "You have to put it in. 'm not allowed to anymore."

"Why not?" He probably doesn't want to know.

"I put Monkey in it an' broke it."

Dean glances down at the forest of golden curls beneath his chin and then suspiciously at the DVD player. Nice flat screen TV, though. Probably HD. "Who's Monkey?"

"My goldfish."

Suddenly grateful to the ache in his balls that will spare the cassette player in the Impala the same fate, Dean rolls Andy off his lap -- much to the kid's delight -- and goes to put the DVD into the goldfish-torture chamber. He grabs the remote control from its place on top of the entertainment system and, wow, who needs that many buttons? One wrong move and he might press the one that launches all the nukes in the world.

"Which one for the TV?"

"The green one!" Andy chirps, and Dean obligingly presses it, hoping that he didn't preemptively start Judgment Day. But, luckily, the TV trills as it clicks on, the picture bright and clear. At the sight of the DC Comics logo, Andy lets out a whoop and kicks his legs excitedly. Dean grins and heads back to the couch.

"You can't answer any questions about you," Andy admonishes as Dean sits back down on his leather slice of paradise and throws a companionable arm around the kid's tiny shoulders. "'Cause that's cheating."

"What makes you think I'm Superman?" He's curious. He doesn't have Superman's jet-black hair or ridiculously-cut chest; it's probably something stupid, like he's the most muscular person Andy's ever seen in Stepfordville, or maybe Dean's just that good-looking. Not like it matters. He's always been more of a Batman kind of guy.

"I can just tell," Andy says, like it's obvious, eyes on the television where a picture of some black and red-suited guy pops up. " _Batman Beyond_!"

"What?" Dean demands. Oh, hell no. "That's not Batman!"

"Is, too! That's Terry, the new Batman."

Uh, not so much. "That's some poser who _wishes_ he were Batman. Where the hell is Bruce Wayne while this douchebag runs around and uses his stuff?"

"He's old an' in the Bat Cave an' has a dog." Andy squirms so he can twist under Dean's arm and look up at him. "What's a douchebag?"

Perfect. "Uh, someone you don't like. But you can't say that word."

Andy settles back down, warm and faintly vibrating against Dean's side like a little dynamo on overload. "You said it."

"Yeah, well, I'm Superman. I can say whatever I want."

Glum at the 'I'm an adult and you're not' line that he's probably fed day in and day out, Andy darts a look at the clown chick on the screen and mutters, "Harley Quinn."

Reaching up, he ruffles Andy's hair. Fucking adorable. "You know a lot about these guys."

"I have to," Andy says, relaxing under Dean's arm.

A comic panel of some guy dressed like Robin Hood fades onto the screen, something in a word bubble whited out. The instructions tell them to fill in the blank, but Dean's too busy trying to figure out who the guy is. "Why's that?"

"I'm gonna be a superhero," Andy announces quietly, playing with the very ends of his cape. He nestles against Dean, humming happily to himself. "An' then I'm gonna be in the Justice League."

Dean smiles. "Oh yeah? How?"

"'Cause I'm not like people," Andy says, like it's no big deal. "An' I get picked on a lot, 'cause I'm smarter an' faster an' stronger an' better, an' all people like that become superheroes. So, I'm gonna be a superhero. I'm gonna be Justice Man an' someday, Mr. Kent, you an' me are gonna fly around an' save everybody."

Andy suddenly sits up and points at the screen.

"WONDER WOMAN'S REAL NAME IS DIANA AN' SHE'S A PRINCESS!!"

Princess Diana is a blur of black, blue and red, and Dean can't seem to focus on her. He tightens his hold on the kid, this little kid who thinks that someday he'll be wearing spandex and a giant 'JM' because he had the shit luck of being demon spawn.

Christ. This is what their lives would have been like if they'd quit hunting and tried to live a normal life. Sam would have gone through school a little too smart, a little too better than everyone else, either beaten up by jealous and scared kids, or shunned altogether and forced to go it alone. And Dean? If he hadn't dropped out by sophomore year, he'd be _that_ kid: the one teachers dread, the one guys don't want to mess with, the one girls think about saving but never actually want to touch. He and Sam would wear the stigma of being touched by the supernatural for the rest of their lives. No one to help them. No one to guide them. Certainly not their father.

That's what's in store for this little kid who wants to become a superhero.

"Andy," Dean rasps, lifting Andy onto his knee and forcing him to stop watching the television. "Andy, I gotta tell you something. Important."

Andy gazes up at him with those large, blue eyes, and Dean has an overwhelming urge to track down and beat the shit out of every kid that ever bullied Andy. He's never wanted to hurt a child in his life, but those eyes, the eyes that could've been Sam's if things had been different, make the prospect of having baby-soft skin split beneath his knuckles so sweet.

"Okay, Mr. Kent," Andy says, smiling up at him, waiting for his hero to lay some pearls of wisdom on him.

"Okay, right. So." This was a bad idea. He's never been good at giving advice and he doesn't know a ton about Superman. "Remember when I crashed here as a baby?"

Andy brightens. "In your Ma and Pa's field!"

Dean nods, breaking out into a light sweat. What the fuck is Castiel doing in there that's taking so long? "Well, I grew up like any other kid, but I knew I was different."

"Like me!"

"Like you," he agrees. "You can do all sorts of cool things that other kids can't, and sometimes they're mean because of it."

Nodding sagely, Andy shifts on Dean's knee until he's more comfortable. "Like when Brendan calls me a freak, or when no one wants to eat lunch with me."

Dean's heart constricts painfully at the image of a sun-drenched classroom full of empty chairs and Andy eating alone while the other kids play outside. "As you grow up, it's gonna get worse. It's gonna get so much worse. People will call you names even worse than 'freak'. They'll spread lies about you. They'll try to hurt you, because they're jealous and scared, and it's the only way they can feel better."

The shine is gone from Andy's eyes, the blue dulling to a slate gray, as Dean's words begin to sink in and his child's mind tries to wrap around what he's being told.

"Oh," Andy breathes, lip trembling. "Because they're douchebags."

It shocks a laugh out of him, barbed and dragging painfully up his throat. "Yeah. Exactly. But you need to remember to never use your, uh, powers against them."

"I know that!" Andy cries, offended that Dean would even suggest he would. "I never have an' I never will!"

"You say that now, but someday it might get bad enough that you forget. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how many names they call you, no matter how many times they take your lunch money, or tell lies about you, or beat you up, you can't use your powers for bad. Only for good." Dean swallows, throat clicking dryly around whatever's lodged there. "That's the mark of a true hero, right?"

Andy nods solemnly, eyes wide and glassy.

"And, well, the Justice League will be recruiting soon, so we're going to need to make sure you're doing what you should."

Brightening, Andy tries to crawl on top of Dean, little arms stretched out and fingers grasping for some shirt or hair, desperate for a hug. "The Justice League?! Thank you, Mr. Kent! I promise I'll be the best superhero ever!"

Laughing, Dean bats at Andy's hands, sinking into the couch to escape the kid's evil knees. "Only for good, remember!"

"I promise!" Andy finally grabs a hold of the back of his neck and squeezes as tightly as he can, which isn't much. Dean jabs his fingers into the soft fabric beneath Andy's arms, unleashing a merciless tickle attack that would make any older brother proud and sends Andy into a tailspin of squealing laughter, his legs kicking uselessly. He lets up on the assault, allowing the kid to catch his breath and come down from the high.

Finally, the arm around his neck loosens as the excitement leaves Andy, the little body relaxing against Dean's chest, golden curls tucked securely under his chin. Dean breathes out slowly; Sam used to do this, in cheap motels where the walls were paper-thin and hid nothing, like the people having loud sex in the room to their left or the drug deal gone wrong to their right. It was a way for Sam to have a connection, to know that he wasn't alone. That Andy does it now tells Dean that Moloch loves his son, but not in the kind of way the kid needs. Andy needs someone to sit him down and tell him _why_ he has all the makings of a superhero. It'd be an impossible subject to bring up, but at least the kid would know instead of wondering about it for the rest of his life.

"Mr. Kent?" Andy murmurs, puffing hot air against the skin of Dean's throat.

"What's up, Justice Man?"

The arm around his neck falls away and a little hand clutches his shirt. "Next week my school's having a field day an' we're s'posed to bring someone from our family to do the races with. Daddy can't go 'cause he's been to lots of school things an' can't miss work again, an' Mommy died, an' I don't have any brothers or sisters. If nobody needs saving, can you fly there an' do the races with me?"

If nobody needs saving. Everyone's going to need saving next week, which is going to be a job even Superman can't handle.

But he curls a hand into Andy's hair and ruffles it. "If nobody needs saving, I'll be there." Maybe with Sam in tow. The three of them would kick some serious ass.

A floor board creaks, and Dean glances up from Andy's golden curls to where Moloch is watching them from the doorway, Castiel standing a step behind. Moloch's face is unreadable, but Dean would put it somewhere between relieved and devastated, his eyes taking in the way his son rests easily against Dean, like he's always done it.

"We have… all the information we need," Castiel announces quietly, curiously studying Andy before meeting Dean's gaze. "I think it would be wise to make our leave now."

"Yeah, okay," Dean says, then glances down and pokes at Andy. "Hey, Justice Man, I gotta get up now."

Andy's grip briefly tightens on his shirt before the boy lets him go, sliding off of him to sit on the couch and stare up with wide, pleading eyes. "Mr. Kent, we didn't finish playing Scene-It."

"Next time." It comes out like the promise he didn't intend but wants to make, and Dean knows that this is more than just the similarities with how Sam used to be. He genuinely likes this kid, and he really wants to be there for the field day. Show those other kids just who's got Andy's back.

Andy nods solemnly, taking him at his word, and then turns to smile brightly at Moloch. "Daddy! Remember how you said you couldn't do the races with me? Mr. Kent is going to come an' do them with me instead!"

Moloch's mouth moves soundlessly beneath the wounds Andy's inflicting before it decides to try on a shaky smile. "That's great, sweetheart. I'm sure you and, uh, Mr. Kent are going to be great."

Sliding off the couch with great regret (he's totally coming back for this couch), he stands and stretches, jerking his thumb toward the front door. "Ready?"

Castiel nods.

"Bye, Jimmy!" Andy calls, waving cheerfully, totally oblivious to the surprised look Castiel turns on him. "You can come to the races next week, too, an' write a news story about me an' Mr. Kent beating everyone!"

Dean grins and nods pointedly at Castiel, who turns to Andy with grave promise and says, "I will be there."

"With your pen an' paper so you can take lots of notes! An' you gotta make sure you call me Justice Man!"

Castiel's gaze softens, charmed by the infectious, simple joy that the kid exudes. "I will not forget."

"I'll walk out with you," Moloch says with false brightness, practically ushering them out of the living room.

Except this isn't how he wants to leave things. He'll definitely regret this, but he thinks of how Sam might have felt in Andy's place, how Moloch and a virtual stranger were the only things the kid could count on.

Dean easily bypasses Moloch's guiding hand and strides quickly back to the couch where Andy's still sitting. There's a TV Guide sitting on the coffee table, open to the crossword puzzle on the last page, half-filled in with words that make absolutely no sense to Dean. But there is an uncapped pen next to it, and he takes it between his fingers and scribbles out his number on the white space on the top of the page. He tears it out and hands it to Andy.

"No one else has this number, because it's top secret," Dean whispers conspiratorially, much to Andy's delight. "It goes right to the Justice League headquarters; it's my number. Anytime you want to talk, you call me. Okay?"

Eyes shining, Andy nods and clutches the piece of paper tightly to the 'S' on his chest. "Thanks, Superman."

Something warm bubbles in his chest as Dean stands straight and points at the kid, tiny on the couch. "Only for good, Andy."

"I promise, Mr. Kent."

As he turns and heads for the doorway, taking stock of the perfect living room in the perfect house on the perfect street, Andy's voice reaches him once again.

"Mr. Kent? Remember when you asked me why I thought you were Superman?"

Dean stops and turns, just on the threshold of the room. "Yeah?"

"I knew 'cause you're so bright," Andy says from his place on the couch. "Like the sun, but even brighter. An' Superman gets his powers from the sun, but he's even better than the sun. So I knew."

Huh. "Oh. Well, that's cool. Thanks, Andy."

He leaves the room without another word, walking through the hallway to where Moloch is standing with the door open, Castiel already on the front step, waiting.

"Dude," Dean says. "Your kid's awesome."

It brings a reluctant smile to Moloch's face, and Dean watches the uncomfortable pull of Moloch's cheek muscles. "Yeah. He's… He's an amazing little boy. I got lucky."

"Yeah," he agrees, and the awkwardness descends. "Look… Has he told you about the bullying? Kids at school giving him a hard time?"

Moloch opens his mouth, then closes it and looks down. "I… He's told me, yes. I just don't know how to handle it. Kids will be kids, of course, and he's so much smaller than the others. I know why it's happening; I just don't know what to tell him to help. I can't tell him what he is, or what I was."

"But you can," Dean says. "Because if you don't, it's just going to get worse. The not knowing is worse than what happens when you do know. Right now? The kid thinks he's going to join the friggin' Justice League because he thinks he's a superhero. You need to sit him down and tell him just what's going on with him. He already knows to use his powers only for good, he needs to hear it from his father."

Moloch exhales and nods. "I… can do that."

Good. "Good. And, uh, sorry about barging in like this."

"No, no," Moloch stammers, glancing down at their shoes -- his own Birkenstocks and Dean's worn to hell boots. "I didn't know that things were as bad as they are. I've given your… friend as much information as I could, which wasn't much. But… there's someone who's waiting for... Lucifer, as well.."

Castiel tilts his head. He looks like a blazingly intense sparrow. "Give us a name."

Moloch swallows. "It's -- It's The Whore."

Now that's something Dean can get behind. "What kind of whore?"

"Not _a_ whore," Castiel corrects him. " _The_ Whore. _'And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication; Upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH._ She rises when Lucifer walks the Earth."

Moloch nods. "Um, she runs a nightclub called Sirrush in L.A. We spoke last night; she felt Lucifer for a moment, then nothing. It may be a fluke; either way, she wouldn't be able to help you."

"What do you mean, 'then nothing?'"

"Just... That's all she said."

So much for being 'done' with all manner of demons.

Dean still can't reconcile the monster he'd built up in his mind with the man standing before him, but he can still see the traces Hell left on him. It's the same shit he sees whenever he looks in a mirror. "This is probably gonna be out of line, but can I ask… how your wife died?"

Moloch's shoulders stiffen and the glare he turns on Dean flays him to the bone. "Human women are not… equipped to deal with the birth of a non-human child."

"Guess you're not as done with all that as you thought."

On that final note, he steps outside and tips his face to the warmth of the sun. Getting the last word in _and_ getting out of a demon's abode alive? It's like a twofer.


	7. Chapter Six

The door closes firmly behind him, a clear sign that tells Dean he's really not welcome back at 117 Stepford Street, no matter how much Andy wants him there.

Castiel stands at the very edge of the top step, balancing easily on the arches of his shoes, and surveys the street, gaze straying to where a group of girls, too old to be called children and too young to be called teenagers, walk back, giggling and gesturing wildly with their hands. Dean watches them as they pass and feels his lip curl at all the make-up they have caked on. What parent would let their kid out looking like that?

"You liked Moloch's son," Castiel says, head turning slowly so he can follow a mother pushing a baby carriage on the other side of the street. "You were completely at ease with him."

It doesn't sound like an accusation, but Dean chooses to take it as one. "So? He's a cool, little dude. It's not his fault that --"

"I was not insulting him, or you." Castiel turns his head to look at him, the sunlight forcing all the color out of his irises, leaving them almost crystalline. "It… I was glad to see it. It made me…"

Castiel closes his mouth, like he's not sure how to get the rest of the sentence out, like he doesn't have the experience needed to describe the feeling accurately, which Dean knows is a crock.

He helps him out anyway. "Surprised? Angry?"

"Happy," Castiel decides on, lips quirking slightly. "I sometimes forget you aren't just a soldier. That you are also a brother and a friend, and --"

Dean's heart starts pounding like fuck, because there are a million ways to finish that, and he really wants to know just what else Castiel sometimes forgets about him. But Castiel just gives him that enigmatic almost-smile and deftly changes the subject. Asshole.

"Moloch knew nothing about Lucifer's whereabouts," Castiel says, and for some reason doesn't sound too broken up about it. It makes Dean a bit angry; this is why they ventured into Stepfordville, and now they've got nothing? Fucking wonderful. There's one day gone already.

"Oh, friggin' great. That means we have to go clubbing now," he groans. ""So what the fuck were you doing in there? Baking cookies?"

"No. Moloch did not have the appropriate cookware for that." Castiel says it with a straight face, too.

Dean snorts, unable to stifle a smile at the image that brings up, of Castiel in a frilly apron holding a platter of freshly-baked double chocolate chunk cookies bloated and still steaming from the oven. "Dude, anytime you want to get the appropriate cookware for that, go ahead."

A critical eye is cast on him, dragging up and down his body, and Dean suppresses a shiver. Then Castiel goes and crushes all his dreams. "Your eating habits are unhealthy enough without me adding to them."

Dean stares. "Did you just call me fat?"

"No."

He opens his mouth to protest, because if Castiel's going to comment on Dean's diet then he totally gets to say something about the amount of product that goes into Castiel's hair, when his phone vibrates against his hip. He gives Castiel a 'we'll continue this later' look, because they so will, and pulls his phone from his pocket, grateful that it survived all of Andy's knee-jabbing. There's a missed text from Sam. He flips open the phone, scans the message, and immediately presses 1 on the speed dial. Sam picks up on the first ring.

"What do you mean, 'we've got a problem'? I've told you before, Sam: never fry bacon when you're naked."

Sam huffs over the line, the sound blasting like the love child of a gust of wind and TV snow in his ear. _Good thing you already ate all the bacon, you dick._

Someone's feisty this morning. "So, problem?"

 _Well, Zachariah showed up about twenty minutes ago._

"And you're just letting me know _now_?!" Dean tightens his hold on the phone until he feels the rounded edges of it biting into his palm. "Dude, you're supposed to be the smart one! Are you okay? What's going on?"

Castiel looks at him, all stony eyes and immediate action. There's no doubt in Dean's mind that Castiel's angelic super hearing is catching the entire conversation. The very mention of Zachariah's name causes his shoulders to stiffen, muscles all locking up beneath the trench coat.

 _Well, that's just it,_ Sam says, confusion coloring his words. _He hasn't zapped inside yet. He's been prowling around the porch and the back, looking for a way in. He was pounding on the door a few minutes ago, trying to get one of us to open it._

"It's the wards," Castiel tells Dean, reaching out and placing an urgent hand on Dean's arm. The touch is unexpectedly hot, and because it's him, his mind totally wonders what that hand would feel like trailing up naked skin.

"Cas says it's the wards that are keeping him out," Dean says, shifting away from Castiel's hand, because there are impressionable children around and he might do something impressionable. "Looks like Raguel's doing what he's supposed to."

"I did say that the wards would not allow you to come to harm."

"Cork it."

 _I didn't say anything!_

"Not you," he snaps, then turns to Castiel, who's waiting for some kind of order. "What the hell is Zachariah doing? I thought he was on Heaven's side."

Castiel shakes his head, a completely human gesture. "I don't know."

Theoretically, Zachariah's supposed to be one of the good guys, in that he works for Heaven and Heaven's supposed to be Good Guy HQ. In reality, he's one of those characters in movies where no one really knows what his motives are; he says he works for the good guys, but goes and does stupid shit like torture and abduction and Green Rooms and cheerfully telling Dean that Heaven totally wants Lucifer out of his box and all his hard work to stop that from happening was just… playtime.

Now that Heaven's plan has changed and the Metatron's running things, he has no idea where Zachariah stands. He'd like to think that after all that bullshit about "Heaven this" and "Heaven that" and "Heaven knows what's best for you," Zachariah'd knock off the Torment the Winchesters thing.

"Don't let him in."

 _Oh, right, because I was gonna open the door and offer him a cold drink_ , Sam snarls.

There's some kind of commotion in the background, but it's too muffled for Dean to make out. He can hear Bobby's 'I will pump your ugly mug full of lead if you don't get the fuck off my property', though.

 _Sorry. Zachariah's banging on the door again. He's saying something about you being in danger and that I need to come with him so he can take me to you._

"Does his rickety van have FREE CANDY painted on the side, too?"

 _I don't know what this is, Dean, but he's flipping out._

A warm hand drops onto his arm again and Dean turns to look at Castiel, who holds his hand out for the phone. "Dude, I'm talking."

"I must speak to Sam," is all Castiel says before he _snatches_ the phone out of Dean's hand and brings it delicately to his ear, holding it awkwardly. Dean doesn't tell him the proper way to use it, because he _stole_ it while he'd been in the middle of conversation. Fucking angels think they can do whatever they want. "Sam? We shall return very shortly with help. Do not go outside, and do not provoke him."

Castiel snaps the phone shut and keeps it in his grasp, even when his hand drops to his side.

Dean watches as Castiel's eyes slide shut, the dark lashes fanned out over porcelain cheeks, and _that_ might be the gayest thing he's ever thought. "I know you're not fluent in common courtesy, but this is the part where you give me my phone back."

Castiel doesn't hand the phone over, or even acknowledge Dean's presence. His eyes remain closed, lids twitching and brows furrowed in concentration. Dean glances over his shoulder to make sure no one on the street is watching the two strange men standing on the top step of a house that isn't theirs.

Dean feels like a total idiot, which only seems to happen when he hangs around Castiel.

"Cas --"

"Dean," Castiel says without opening his eyes. "Please stop talking."

Wow, all right. Touchy bastard.

Frowning, Dean itches the back of his neck and hopes that Castiel's sudden meditation session on Moloch's front step will be a fucking quick one; he has a feeling that Sam is going to do something stupid, like invite Zachariah in for tea and crumpets. He wouldn't put it past him; Sam's always been the one with the penchant for bad decisions and trusting people he shouldn't. Man, he's lucky that no one ever approached Sam and asked him for help finding their lost puppy. Kid would've been gone in a flash.

Castiel's lashes part, baring electric blue, and he opens Dean's phone and dials with his normal, creepy focus.

"So, what was that all about?" Dean asks, unable to keep the sarcasm from twisting the innocuous question into something ugly.

Castiel doesn't seem to hear it in Dean's tone. "I was locating Gabriel."

The day just suddenly got even shittier. "Why? Can't you just call him up on Heaven's hotline?"

"If I were to contact him through Heaven's... open channels, the entire Host would be privy to the conversation. I want to verify Zachariah's whereabouts." Castiel brings the phone to his ear and waits through three rings before someone picks up on the other line. "Hello, brother."

Dean's never seen Castiel actually call someone on a phone before, and it's not as hilarious as it ought to be. Castiel isn't juggling it with all of the grace of a three-year old, or shouting into the receiver. He's doing it like he's always done it, like Jimmy Novak's muscle memory is still sticking with him.

A confused frown mars Castiel's pretty features, and Dean automatically tenses. Who knows what that bastard's saying. Probably something along the lines of 'So, I talked it over with the big boss and he wants you to kill Dean. See you at Christmas!'

"Gabriel, must I? You know that it is I -- No, I understand completely, but perhaps if you could choose another method of verification?" Castiel actually looks hopeful, but his shoulders slump and he brings the phone away from his face, staring at it with the air of a man resigned to his own execution.

A muscle in Dean's jaw spasms. "Dude, what is it?"

Castiel shakes his head and brings the phone back to his ear. Then, with all the gravity one can imbue a sentence, he says, "It is hard out here for a pimp."

What.

" _That's_ your password?!"

Castiel turns his back to him so he can concentrate on the phone call. "You're welcome, Gabriel." He doesn't sound very welcoming. "Gabriel, Zachariah is on Earth and has been trying to get into the Winchester's safe haven. Are you aware of this? Was this allowed -- No, he cannot. I placed wards on the house that bear Raguel's name." Castiel's tone softens, pleased, proud. "Thank you, brother."

Dean huffs and toes at a small piece of loose cement that glares up at him from the grout between the bricks, kicking it down the stairs with a sharp movement and watching it bounce down until it disappears into the grass.

"Cas, hurry this the fuck up," he snarls, restless with the need to get back to Bobby's and kick that smug dick off the premises. "We've got places to go."

Castiel glares at him from over his shoulder, blue eyes narrowed and sharper than ice, but he places the desire to have a conversation with his older brother behind the need to help Sam. Any other time, Dean would have totally been all for Castiel talking to a member of his family (even if it had to be Gabriel); Castiel's gone too long without. But right now? Not a good time.

Whatever Gabriel says on the other line drags Castiel back into the conversation, and he nods, as if Gabriel can see him. "Then we shall meet you there. Thank you, Gabriel."

Castiel lowers the phone and hands it back to Dean, who shuts it with a sharp snap.

"So? We going?"

"Yes," Castiel says, lifting his chin and baring his pale cheeks to the warmth of the sun, running his eyes through with gold. "Zachariah is supposed to be working with his own garrison in Heaven, preparing to storm the Fourth Circle of Hell. He disappeared early this morning and could not be found."

Sounds like Ugly's turned colors on them. It doesn't surprise Dean in the least; there was always something dark and twisted about Zachariah, how easily he wore his vessel and that fucking smirk. And Sam and Bobby are trapped inside with that bastard running around. Deans needs to be there, five minutes ago. "Cas."

Two fingers lift in a familiar answer, and Dean closes his eyes, leaning forward to meet them, giving Castiel this small gesture of trust to do whatever he wants with it. But the caress of the mojo fingers never comes. Dean opens his eyes, and his stomach flutters at Castiel's close proximity. It's a wonder that Paul from across the street hasn't called the cops on them yet.

"Cas?" He asks, breathless. He sounds like a two-dollar whore.

Something clicks into place the second Castiel's gaze meets his, and Castiel nods. "We're going." His fingers brush over Dean's forehead, and --

When he opens his eyes, he's standing in Bobby's front yard amid dust and a couple piles of scrap metal. Bobby's house lies about thirty feet away, tall against a cloudless sky, firm against the douchebag in the suit who's currently banging on the front door, like he forgot his brick of cocaine inside and really needs a fix. The very sight of Zachariah on the porch makes Dean’s gut tighten; there's something off about it. Zachariah's never so primal, so out of control.

"Cas," Dean hisses quietly, so as to not draw Zachariah's attention from the door, but Castiel holds up a hand to cut him off.

"You will stay low," Castiel orders softly, eyes boring a hole into the back of Zachariah's suit jacket. "There is nothing you will be able to do should he instigate a fight."

He reaches out and grips Castiel's arm tightly, and Castiel stares down at Dean's hand in surprise. "Cas, staying low's not my style. I'm not letting you do this alone."

"Stubborn," Castiel growls, the word smoke over gravel. He glares up at Dean through his lashes. Fire sweeps through him at that look, burning up everything in its path. Dean's dick twitches in interest, forcing him to take a step back and swallow the reaction down to simmer in his belly. So not the time. Forgetting this morning's little fluke might be harder than he'd thought.

"You wouldn't want me any other way," he says lightly, glancing back at the house. Zachariah's standing at the window now and playing a really creepy peeping Tom. "What if I managed to get inside and get a weapon?"

Castiel takes a step closer, making up for the one Dean took back. "To do what?"

"Help?" He shrugs; he has no idea how this is going to go down. The only way to know will be to just let it happen. "Cas, if you can distract him long enough to let me in the house, I can grab something that could help."

"Dean --"

"Either that, or I'm just gonna charge him right now."

The blue eyes locked with his narrow in what looks like a mix of anger, resignation, and fondness. Dean takes a baby step forward, so close to Castiel that the tips of his boots press against the scuffed toes of Jimmy’s black dress shoes, so close he can taste the Himalayas on Castiel’s not-quiet breath.

"Cas --"

Castiel leans forward, and for one terrifying-exciting-undeserving moment Dean thinks Castiel is going to kiss him. But his lips go to Dean's ear and his gaze focuses on Zachariah from over Dean's shoulder.

He chokes down disappointment. Not the time.

"I will distract Zachariah long enough for Sam to open the door and let you inside," Castiel breathes, the tips of his shoes nudging even harder against Dean's. "Long enough until Gabriel comes."

Dean snorts and reluctantly steps away from Castiel, turning to watch Zachariah give up his assault on the front door and windows and stalk around to try his luck at the back of the house. "And where the fuck _is_ dear, old Gabe?"

Castiel ignores him, eyes back on the house. "Be ready, Dean. I'll bring you to the door."

Except pounding on the door and shouting for Sam is going to take too long, and Zachariah'd be on him like shit on Velcro. Dean reaches into his pocket for his phone; if he texts Sam and tells him to be ready to open the door, then this might actually work.

He doesn't expect the Mack truck that slams into him, sending him backwards through the air, the wind shrieking as it rushes over the backs of his ears and shoulders. It hits him again, right in the chest this time, and something definitely snaps inside of him as it takes him by the throat and hurls him into the ground. The metallic taste of blood is heavy on his tongue, even heavier than the weight of Zachariah on top of him. He thrashes against Zachariah's hold on his throat, but it doesn't do anything except fill his throat and mouth with blood, so much of it, until he's choking on it.

 _Ow._

A wet gasp makes it past his lips, coloring them red, and he manages to crack his eyes open so he can take one last look at Zachariah's ugly mug and his --

Black eyes. His black demon eyes.

Then Zachariah's gone, the weight ripped away from him, and the sudden lack of douche on his trachea and chest allows him to roll onto his side and throw up. Through the haze of pain, he catches sight of the trench coat's tails as Castiel grapples with Zachariah.

"Dean!" Castiel forces past what must be gritted teeth, his name long and drawn out. It's so guttural that Dean's own destroyed throat aches in sympathy.

He'd love to answer, but he's busy with his punctured lung and crushed windpipe.

Stomach giving another heave and staining the dirt red, Dean shudders to his knees, and wow, that's painful. He coughs wetly, more blood welling up in his throat, and can't get any air in; he collapses back to the ground. If he dies like this, in a pool of his own blood and vomit, he's going to be pissed.

"Wow! Good morning," someone above him snarks, and Dean's never been so grateful to hear that voice. "I make a quick stop at Starbucks and you go and get yourself killed. How have you even lived this long? I bet you poke your fingers into rat traps, too."

"Oh, by all means, take your time. Whenever's convenient for you. No rush," Dean snaps, except it actually sounds like he's gargling syrup. The muscles in his back protest the strain as he locks up and _throws_ up. A wave of dizziness crashes over him, too much blood on the ground and too little in his body. Dark clouds start rolling in at the corners of his eyes, and oh, Jesus, he's knock-knock-knocking on Heaven's door, and Gabriel's just standing there. Dean gurgles a plea.

Gabriel bends down, a hand cupped over his ear. "Sorry, champ, I missed that. Run it by me one more time?"

He's too exhausted and hurt to even think a simple 'fuck you' at him, so Dean just settles for resting his head on the ground -- most likely in whatever he just threw up -- and hopes it comes across as 'die in a fire, you twisted fuck.'

"Is that any way to treat your rescuer?" Gabriel sounds so far away, but Dean can just make out his sneakers as Gabriel crouches by his head. "Look at him. He's fighting pretty hard for you, slick. I've never seen an angel defend a human so vehemently."

It's too hard to hear Gabriel now, let alone process whatever stupid shit he's saying.

"Oh, fine." A hand clamps onto his arm and rolls him onto his back, Dean too half-conscious to fight it, then presses down onto his chest. He thinks he's screaming, but the next moment it's gone and the world is thrust back into crystal clarity.

Groaning, Dean pushes himself up and finds that same hand held out for him to take. He slaps it away and gets to his feet all by himself, ignoring Gabriel's eye roll.

"You're welcome," Gabriel sneers, wiping his hand on his cargo pants.

Dean's too busy watching Castiel lose his footing and fall before Zachariah, who pushes him down the rest of the way until Castiel's cheek is pressed into the dirt. He starts forward, intent on breaking some serious boneage on Zachariah's fat fucking face, but Gabriel stops him by throwing an arm up against his newly-healed chest, blocking him.

"What the fuck are you waiting for?!" He shouts, feeling coiled and barely-suppressed power in the arm keeping him from joining the melee. Gabriel could break him with barely a thought, but he really doesn't give a shit. "He needs you!"

Gabriel squints, frowning as Castiel manages to throw a hand up against Zachariah's forehead. Dean thinks he can see Castiel's mouth move, but he's not entirely sure. It looks like Castiel's trying to perform one of his Demon B-Gone specials, but nothing's happening.

"His eyes," Dean starts, but the arm drops as Gabriel strides forward.

It's so mind-boggling to think just what's contained in that small form, what unimaginable strength and power lurk beneath that annoying smile and those beady eyes. He doesn't know thing one about Gabriel's vessel -- who he was, what he did, when he was taken -- but that body knows how to hide an archangel. It's not hiding Gabriel anymore. Dean can't believe he thought Gabriel was just a Trickster.

Shadows race over the scorched earth, sweeping outward, the air crackling with the promise of a lightning show as Gabriel unveils his wings, seven points of electricity that snap and pop like fireworks. Dean runs forward to catch up, but makes it only a few feet before Gabriel pulls Zachariah off of Castiel and shoves his hand through Zachariah's throat.

Zachariah gurgles, but Gabriel ignores it and slams the palm of his hand onto that bald forehead for good measure. Dean can hear every word, every Latin, Greek, and what must be Enochian word that drips from Gabriel's pouty mouth. Castiel gets to his feet and takes a few steps back as Zachariah's vessel starts to convulse in Gabriel's grasp, the sallow skin shivering under the force of an archangel.

Dean's too far away to see exactly what's going on, but he can see the light growing in Zachariah's eyes and mouth. And fuck, he knows what that means. He needs to hit the dirt, fast.

When the light reaches its zenith, there's no explosion. Zachariah slumps against Gabriel, knees crumpling under him and dropping his hulking mass to the ground. Gabriel, little thing that he is, stands tall against his brother's weight, even when Zachariah sinks to lie motionless on top of Gabriel's sneakers.

Grunting, Dean gets to his feet and walks as fast as he can to where Castiel is absently rubbing his throat, staring down at the body that once housed an angel of God.

"Cas?" He asks, reaching out and laying a careful hand on Castiel's shoulder. It tenses beneath his palm, then relaxes, and Castiel turns to him with endlessly sad eyes. Zachariah was a Grade-A dick, but he was still Castiel's brother. It's a fact that gets buried under so much other shit; Castiel has millions of siblings. He must feel each of their deaths as much as Dean would feel losing Sam. And, shit, that's _how_ many brothers and sisters now?

"I am fine," Castiel says, because that's just what Castiel says. "I'm sorry I could not help you. Are you hurt?"

He exhales and shakes his head, knees turning to jelly. It was another close call. Too close. "Nah, Gabriel came and played Captain Planet."

Castiel looks confused at the reference, but Gabriel smirks and waves it off. "It was nothing, kiddo."

"So, what the fuck just happened?" He toes Zachariah's dead body, much to the obvious dismay of Castiel, and he backs off at the devastated glance sent his way before it's walled back up with ice. "His eyes -- They were like a demon's eyes."

Gabriel crouches down next to Zachariah and shoves his hand into the suit jacket for a second before withdrawing it. His fingers are covered in a substance that looks a lot like oil, or black blood. It shines iridescent in the sunlight. "Seems like our dear brother made him an offer he couldn't refuse. I'm not surprised it ended like this for him. I loved Zach, but he was one twisted S.O.B."

Dean snorts, pale green walls flashing in his head. "You ain't kidding."

Castiel says nothing, just stares down at Zachariah, at the sunken flesh, the pristine suit, like it was a personal betrayal. It was, in a way. Zachariah had been Castiel's superior, and Castiel had placed a shit ton of trust in Zachariah. Even when blood had been spilled in the Green Room and Castiel had zapped the bastard out of there, it was probably the hardest thing Castiel ever had to do.

"Hey," Dean mutters, knocking his shoulder against Castiel's. "You gonna be okay?"

It's better than asking 'how do you feel?' His brother was just put down right before his eyes; of course he's not okay. Dean hates it when people ask that question, especially on the news. 'Your mother was just found dead in her apartment; how do you feel?' or 'Your eight-year old daughter was raped by a child molester; how do you feel?'

"I will be, yes." Castiel bows his head for his fallen brother.

Awkwardly, Dean shifts his weight to his other leg and trades glances with Gabriel, who follows Castiel's lead and tips his chin down.

"I'm sorry," Dean murmurs, unsure of what else to say, how many more times he's going to say it before this whole thing is through. It must be the right thing to say, because Castiel lifts his head and fixes Dean with a soft gaze.

"Thank you for saying it."

Gabriel's outright beaming. "Aren't you two just darling?"

"Fuck off," Dean snaps, but his heart isn't in it. His heart is still getting used to beating regularly again, and his throat aches. Sleeping tonight ought to be a party.

He catches Castiel's eye and jerks his head in the direction of the house, not waiting for an answer before he starts forward. Shoes scuff the dirt behind him, and Dean knows that he won't be entering the house alone.

The front door looks untouched, despite Zachariah's constant barrage against it, and Dean pounds on it twice. "Sam? Bobby? Open up; it's all clear."

"How do we know this isn't Zachariah playing some sort of trick?" Comes Sam's voice, muffled through the door.

Dean stares at the old wood incredulously. If Dad were still around, he'd kick down the door and punch Sam in the mouth. "What -- Don't tell me you missed everything just now! Weren't you watching through the window?"

"… We made sandwiches."

They're all going to die. Dean's going to need Sam at some point in time and Sam's stomach is going to rumble and that'll be the end of the game.

"Sammy, open the door or I swear to God I'll tell everyone about how you wanted to wear skirts when you were eight!"

The hinges practically snap under the force of the door as it swings wide open, and Sam pulls Dean inside with a flustered, "Christ, Dean!"

Castiel and Gabriel stand just beyond the threshold, two immovable objects waiting for an embossed invitation. Dean beckons them in, but their feet don't even twitch.

"Uh, whenever you want," Dean says slowly, and Gabriel waves a dismissive hand.

"Zach couldn't get in; what makes you think we're any different?"

Castiel tilts his head to the side, birdlike and somehow very small. "You have Raguel's name on those walls. We cannot enter unless we are physically invited."

"Like vampires?" Sam inquires brightly.

Gabriel snorts. "Hardly."

"Just invite 'em in, already!" Bobby shouts from somewhere in the house. "You're gonna let in a draft!"

"It's seventy-five degrees out!" Dean shouts back, but extends a hand to Castiel anyway. Gabriel reaches for it and Dean ducks him, waggling his fingers for Castiel to take. "Dude, come on in."

Castiel's hand, calloused from the past year yet somehow still soft from Jimmy Novak's life of a normal family man, lifts and drifts into Dean's. It's an intimate touch, too intimate for the world to see; Dean yanks Castiel inside as quickly as he can, then releases those long fingers and curls his own into a fist at his side.

"A _hem_ ," Gabriel hocks, and Dean smirks at him.

"Sorry, champ, I missed that. Run it by me one more time?"

Instead of taking offense to having his own words thrown back at him, Gabriel looks seriously amused. The way he did when he killed Dean a bajillion times. "Cute. Now let me in; my feet hurt."

Sam frowns at him, seriously not amused. "You're not gonna try anything stupid, are you? Like, I don't know, _kill_ us? Or play any kind of trick?"

Gabriel's the picture of innocence. "Moi? Never! Even if I wanted to, you're protected by Raguel, which is fucking fantastic, because he's been gone for decades. So, no, no killing. Unless you want me to. I'm sure if I get your permission --"

"Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say no to that," Sam says, rolling his eyes.

Dean turns to Castiel and is about to tell him all about Gabriel's little Winchester-killing game, hoping for some sympathy, but the wide-eyed look of shock on Castiel freezes the words to his tongue. It's the same expression he wore when he came to them at St. Mary's, disheveled and unable to handle all of the very human emotions that were ripping through him, the loss of Jesus Christ too much to bear. It's the look he was wearing not five minutes ago, standing over the body of Zachariah, another dead loved one. Fuck, how much is Castiel going to lose? The war hasn't even started.

"Cas?" Dean prompts, but Castiel doesn't hear him, just stares at Gabriel from behind the invisible barrier keeping his brother out.

"Raguel cannot be _gone_!" Castiel says loudly, inflection rising on the last word and turning it into a shout. "Raguel is an archangel, the closest to God of any in Heaven."

Gabriel shakes his head, all traces of good humor gone, and his gaze is as deep and solemn as Castiel's ever was. "Sorry, little bro, but Raguel's been gone for a long time."

"How? When?"

"Dunno. Not long after Christ came back to Heaven," Gabriel says with a shrug. "Barachiel was promoted to fill his spot."

Castiel's shoulders tense. "But… Why? Did he -- did he Fall?"

"Nope."

Castiel's shoulders drop in relief.

"One day, he just up and left. No fanfare, just… one second he was there, the next he was gone. Most of Heaven doesn't know; the Seven usually keep out of everyone else's -- actually, that's a lie. We don't have to tell you. It's nothing personal; it's just that we're better than you."

Okay, yeah, and that's enough of that. Dean's about to slam the door right in his face, gets his hand on the square edge and is about to swing it shut as hard as he can when Castiel places a calm hand over his wrist, stopping him. He glares at Castiel, but Castiel's not paying any attention to him, as usual. All that cold focus is on Gabriel, who stares back with bored eyes, like he couldn't give a shit if they didn't let him in at all, but Dean thinks he sees something dark lurking in those eyes. He has a feeling that if Castiel rejects Gabriel now, it's going to be final.

Castiel visibly squares his shoulders and tilts his chin up proudly. He holds out a hand.

"Won't you come in, Gabriel?"


	8. Part Seven

Dean naps most of the afternoon, too fucking tired to deal with anything that actually needs to be said or done. As soon as Gabriel had stepped into the house, Dean pushed away and went upstairs, collapsing into his bed and falling asleep almost immediately.

When he eventually makes it back downstairs, it's dark outside and the house is cooler, and there are voices coming from the kitchen. He pauses in the doorway and takes in Sam, Castiel, Bobby, and Gabriel sitting around the kitchen table, a massive spread of dishes before them, none that Dean can recognize but they smell amazing.

Sam lifts his head away from his plate, sucking a noodle wetly into his mouth, and smiles at Dean. "Well, look who finally decided to grace us with his presence."

He snorts. "Close your mouth, you fucking baby. That's disgusting." He walks into the kitchen and kicks over the remaining chair, one that obviously doesn't belong to the dinette set but was probably found outside somewhere, put there so he'd have a place to sit. He drops into it and gestures at the food. "What's all this?"

Gabriel smiles, biting into something that's impaled on a thin wooden stick. "Chinese food."

"This doesn't look like any kind of Chinese food I've ever seen."

"He got it from China," Bobby grunts at him, mouth full of what looks like duck. There's actually a mostly-whole duck on a plate near the center of the table, burnished golden brown and piping hot.

Dean gives Gabriel a look, because _what_. "You went to China and got actual Chinese food."

Gabriel shrugs and chews with his mouth open, eyes crinkled in pleasure. "I don't mess around when it comes to food. Why settle for a shitty knock-off when you can have the real thing?"

He can't argue with that.

Reaching for an empty plate, one most likely meant for him, he holds it and dishes something that looks vaguely beef-like onto the plate and casts around for some fried rice. Real Chinese or not, there has to be fried rice.

"Sorry, chief," Gabriel says, pointing at a pretty ceramic bowl full of white rice. "There's some sauce you can throw over it. I think it's got shrimp in it. I wasn't paying much attention when I snagged it."

Dean really doesn't care; he's starving. He spoons about half the bowl of rice onto his plate and smothers it in some kind of burgundy sauce, the smell bitter and tangy. Fuck. If this is what it means to have Gabriel on their side, then he's pretty okay with it. Especially if Gabriel starts getting food from, like, Italy. Actual Italian pizza.

And, oh, it's the best Chinese food he's ever had. "I'm not sure how I feel about the no MSG thing."

"Shut up, idgit, and eat." Bobby obviously feels great about it.

He glances to his right where Castiel is staring at the plate in front of him, heaping with all sorts of food and completely untouched. Sam and Gabriel probably dished all kinds of shit onto it, without any rhyme or reason, in the hopes that he'd partake. Castiel's definitely not there, drifting somewhere and trying to repair all the new cracks in his already-broken world, applying as much superglue and duct tape as he can.

"Cas," Dean prompts, waving his fork underneath Castiel's nose. It's got that beef-whatever speared on it, still hot. "Why don't you give this a try? It's fucking awesome."

Castiel looks at him, blank. "I do not eat."

"But you could," he tries. It's true. Angels may not _need_ to eat, but they certainly _can_. Gabriel certainly is. "C'mon, man, it's really good. You look like a beef-thing kind of guy."

"That's fo tiao qiang," Sam corrects.

"The hell does that mean?"

"Shark fin." Sam reaches over to steal one from Dean's plate.

"Get your own, bitch!" Shark or not, it's good. He turns back to Castiel and gives him a big grin. "Do it for me. I promise you'll like it."

Castiel holds his gaze, looks down at the shark fin on Dean's fork, then looks back up. "All right."

Long fingers take the fork, brushing against his skin and sparking heat over his second knuckles, and lift it to lips that part around strangely white teeth. Castiel pulls the shark fin from the prongs and chews methodically, like he knows the mechanics of it but not actually why he's doing it. Eventually, his jaw loosens and he chews it thoughtfully, eyes coming to life as the flavors burst over his tongue. Dean can't help but stare and catalog all those minute reactions. Castiel's really expressive; Dean just needs to know when to look.

"So?" Sam inquires, paused in his own chewing, interested.

"Baby's first bite," Gabriel sings, grinning and waving his own fork in the air, noodles wrapped around it like a cocoon.

Castiel tilts his head and swallows, the sound audible as his throat contracts and forces it down. "It... is interesting. Tender, but flavorful. I like it."

Dean grins, savoring this little victory, and takes the liberty of pointing at something that's swimming in bright orange sauce on Castiel's plate. "Well, dig in! Not every day we get authentic Chinese."

Castiel's fork scrapes against his plate, his face a little brighter, a little less tense. Dean looks up and sees Gabriel looking right back at him, pleased and maybe a bit approving. It's masked soon enough behind mischief and potty humor, but Dean knows what he saw. Even if being an archangel makes Gabriel better than Castiel, it doesn't stop them from being family.

He pops a dumpling -- an actual dumpling -- into his mouth and chomps on it with gusto, and fuck, that is beautiful. They are so doing this, like, every night. If Gabriel can do it, then Castiel can too, and he's so taking advantage of that.

"So," he says around a swallow. "What's going on? What'd I miss?"

Bobby drinks from a small bowl-like cup, and it's definitely liquor. "You mean before you went upstairs and fainted?"

Dean makes a face. "Don't use that word. I didn't faint. I was tired."

"You totally went upstairs and _swooned_ ," Sam joins in, gleeful at the prospect of his older brother passing out like a total girl. "I bet there was some whimpering involved."

Was not. "Well, when you have your ribs shattered in your chest and your windpipe crushed all to hell, we'll see how you handle the recupe."

That shuts Sam up. Dean grins and reaches for some of that liquor.

Bobby gives Dean a look from beneath the brim of his hat, one Dean recognizes as 'way to be an idgit, you idgit.' Dean gives him a look right back that says 'I survived, so what's that look for?'

"So, Cas was telling us how things went with Moloch," Sam says, breaking the sudden tension, and Dean looks over at Castiel, who's nudging some kind of vegetable around his plate.

"You mean how useless it was? How we wasted a whole day in fucking Stepfordville while we could've been doing something productive?"

Gabriel grins. "Like what? Finding a way to make your car run on shattered childhood dreams and lost faith in yourself?"

Dean flicks some white rice at him. "Screw you."

Gabriel sticks out his tongue. Very mature. Dean just manages to stop himself from doing it back at him.

"I think it was pretty useful," Sam says, confused. "I mean, you got Sariel's address."

There must have been a conversation that he and Castiel had, and he missed it. He's never heard that name in his life, but he can guess what Sariel is. All of the angels have pretty boring names. All those 'el's.

"Who's Sariel?" And now it looks like Castiel did all the work and Dean just got his grubby fingerprints all over Moloch's fine china.

Castiel pops a snap pea pod into his mouth and chews, gaze unreadable as he looks at Dean. "Sariel is --"

"Sariel was pretty cool," Gabriel interrupts, taking a shot of that liquor. It'd been too strong and sweet for Dean, but that seems to be just fine with Gabriel. "She was one of the big boys up until, oh, late 900? She decided that humanity needed to be protected from whatever the hell was roaming around during that time, so she took a garrison and scattered across the globe, setting up ports." Gabriel pours himself some more liquor.

"She was in Tasmania, I believe," Castiel says.

Bobby looks up from where he's shoveling food into his mouth. There are bits of rice scattered in his beard. "Don't you keep track of your people?"

"Too many to keep track of. She checked in now and again, but then I think we just stopped caring." Gabriel shrugs.

Castiel's fork screeches as the prongs scrape across his plate, the sound loud and jarring and Dean's head is going to explode. Gooseflesh rises over his arms and the back of his neck, shivering in response. He hates that sound. It makes him think someone's scraping their front teeth down the ceramic siding of a house, and now isn't that a disgusting thing to think.

"Sariel had foresight when many did not," Castiel says firmly. "She cared about Father's creations, more than she needed to."

Gabriel snorts. "Why are you defending her? It wasn't until, like, five minutes ago that you even looked at a human as more than a sort of interesting bug."

Castiel tilts his head to the side, the way he used to when something confused him, but his eyes are like stone. "Unlike you, who uses them as entertainment."

"They're funny. What else do you want me to say?" Gabriel's gaze is just as cold. "Oh, I forgot. You get a free pass just because you yanked one of them out of the Pit."

There it is again, someone mentioning Castiel pulling him out of Hell in a less than positive light. When Castiel had appeared in the barn and gave him that spiel about being an angel and lifting him from Perdition (he still has no idea what that means, but he vaguely knows it has something to do with Tom Hanks), he'd yelled and bitched and denied it, but he didn't question it. How could he, when this thing was uncasing its wings and speaking with such conviction? For some reason, God had wanted him out of there and had sent a worker bee to see it done.

Now, Dean feels like that's not the whole story. He really needs to stop shouting and start thinking more.

"So!" Sam says loudly, awkwardly, trying to diffuse the bomb before it goes off. Like the coyote in Looney Tunes, pulling out the lit fuse from a live bomb that explodes anyway. "Sariel. What is she up to now? I'm guessing she's not in Tasmania anymore."

Castiel breaks his staring match with Gabriel and nods in Sam's direction. "No, she isn't. She is now in New York City, at a human college."

"As opposed to a pony college?" Dean can't help it sometimes. Castiel just makes it too easy. "So, an angel's going to school. Isn't that cheating? Don't you guys know everything there is to know?"

Gabriel purses his lips, then shrugs and sprawls back in his seat, a bowl of what looks like truly chocolaty ice cream topped with butterscotch and almonds appearing in his hands. "Maybe she was bored. Once she left, she couldn't go back to Heaven. Maybe she just wants to see how badly you schmucks are screwing up history and literature. I really enjoy the one about the dinosaurs."

Sam turns wide eyes onto Gabriel, who's sucking his sundae off a long spoon. "You mean they weren't killed by an asteroid?"

Gabriel says nothing, but his eyes crinkle. Dean ignores him; the dinosaurs are dead. Asking why isn't going to bring them back.

"So, why did Moloch know her whereabouts? If Gabriel didn't know, and Heaven doesn't know, how does a demon in the fucking 'burbs know?" Dean stares at Castiel until the side of Castiel's head practically starts to smoke. It would've been nice if Castiel had mentioned this while they were on Moloch's front step instead of calling Dean fat.

Castiel cocks his head. "Their paths crossed during her initial centuries here and they... formed an alliance."

"You're making that up."

"Of course I am." Castiel's starting to get the hang of sarcasm, and Dean's not sure that he likes it. "I don't know how or why they are acquainted. Moloch never said."

This is the most unorganized almost-Apocalypse ever. "So, what would visiting her do? Does she have some intel on how this whole thing happened, or did Moloch just give you her number as collateral to get us the hell out of his house?"

Gabriel hums thoughtfully, licking butterscotch from the dip in his spoon. He looks like a little kid, all happy indulgence and sugar-coated fingers. "If anyone would know the whereabouts of _anyone_ , it'd be Sariel. She's been on Earth for so long that there probably isn't one spot on this little mudball that she hasn't explored."

Sam sits up a little straighter. "She's explored everything."

"Probably," Gabriel says, digging another huge scoop of ice cream out of his dish. "A billion places to hide and Sariel knows every single one of them. If Lucifer's been running with scissors somewhere around the globe, she'll have some kind of idea where he might be, or at least where he'll start causing problems."

Bobby snorts, scratching at his beard. The loose bits of rice fall into his lap and onto the floor. His face is flushed with all that Chinese liquor he'd chugged. "Like he hasn't already?"

"You mean the Leviathan." Sam's focused, at least.

"What's the Leviathan?" Dean inquires. Someone needs to keep him in the loop, otherwise he's going to come off looking like an idiot.

"Sea monster," Bobby says, pointing his chopsticks at Dean. "According to all the texts, it rises when Lucifer walks the earth. Think of it as an announcement. When the Leviathan appears, Lucifer's on his way."

The spoon dives into the ice cream, twists prettily and catches the light, then pops between Gabriel's sticky lips. "Among other things. Knowing Lucifer, he'll be pulling all of the stops: the Leviathan, the Horsemen, the Dragon, the Whore… Remember, this isn't technically an end to Humankind, but a direct assault on Hell. As much as he hates it, he's going to protect his kingdom at all costs."

Dean sits back in his seat and glances over at Castiel, but he can't read a thing from him. He's gone back to that cool, untouchable veneer, but Dean knows what's lurking underneath it, what's raging and breaking and dying.

"Why?" Sam asks, incredulous.

He knows the answer even before Bobby says it, because there's only one reason Lucifer would try and save something that he resents, that was made to be a constant reminder of everything he lost. It's what Dean did in the Green Room, when he refused to adhere to the angels' plan of "letting it happen". It would have been so easy to say yes, to give up everything just so it would all stop, or maybe so it would all change.

From the corner of his eye, Dean sees Castiel's head turn his way. He doesn't think it's to condemn him for his thoughts; it's probably to agree, to let him know that he's not alone.

"To prove a point."

A soft whine startles him out of his staring contest with Bobby, and it takes him a second to realize that Castiel is yawning, jaw stretched wide around the deep intake and exhale of air. When his teeth snap shut, Castiel looks confused, like he has no idea what just happened, his eyes large and glazed over with apparent exhaustion. Sam follows suit, accompanying his own yawn with a full body stretch.

Gabriel smirks at them. "Is it time for all good little boys to go to bed?"

"Shut up," Sam bites out, reaching for the ceiling and gasping when something audibly pops in his shoulder. "Don't you have somewhere else to be? Aren't there a multitude of angels in Heaven that you could bother?"

"I wasn't needed to plan the first ambush," Gabriel says lightly, with a careless shrug. "Remiel's heading up that one."

Bobby gives him a narrowed-eyed look. "I don't know much about Remiel."

It brings a grin to Gabriel's face, and Dean is so very happy that humans are just so hilarious. This is how dogs must feel when people coo over them. "Not many do. He keeps to himself, mostly. But he's got that look in his eye -- boy's been dying for some action."

Castiel's chair squeaks against the scuffed linoleum tiles as he stands. Dean wants to tell him to sit his ass down and stop pandering to Gabriel's stupid ego, but he can't tell him to not show respect to his older brother. He'd kick Sam's ass if he ever tried to pull that. Has kicked Sam's ass, actually.

"Goodbye, Gabriel." It's flat and soft, completely devoid of emotion, except where it's not. It's a taste of the original Castiel, angel of the Lord flipping through a Bible in a symbol-covered barn. He hasn't surfaced since the Green Room, and Dean's not sure if he's missed him. In the days since Jesus's murder, Castiel's been... softer. More approachable. Almost human, though Dean's really fucking hesitant to put that label on him. Humanizing an angel sounds a bit like domesticating a wolf: they're all cute and love to be petted for a while, but the wildness never leaves their eyes and they snap and turn at some unfixed point in time.

Gabriel gets to his feet and gives Castiel an appraising stare. "Looking a bit rough there, bro."

Castiel drops his gaze, embarrassed and deferential. "I've developed a sudden need for sleep."

"Huh. Fancy that."

"I was hoping," Castiel continues, eyes on the table, "if you could tell me if I am... Falling."

Dean knows he has no cause to be worried, but there's something in the way Gabriel squints at Castiel that has the taste of vomit and malt bubbling up to mix with the shark fin on his tongue.

"Falling? Why do you think you're Falling?" Gabriel sounds genuinely confused. "I see the mark of the Host in you; I see your Grace. What makes you think --" He stops and gives Castiel a smile. "I wouldn't worry my pretty little head about it. I'm sure you're just tired from all the hot sex you and Johnny Handsome over there are having."

His cheeks are on fire. "Shut the fuck up, you sonuvabitch! We're not --"

Sam says nothing to defend him, the little shit, even though he totally knows that there's nothing going on between Dean and Castiel. Jacking off in the shower -- alone -- not withstanding.

But Gabriel's full-on grinning, his little weasely face scrunched up with humor. Really, really bad humor. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Tell me, bro, it's okay. Is he a screamer, or does he just lie there and think of his car?"

The snicker Sam tries to hide behind a fake cough is going to get him Nair in his shampoo.

"I think it's time for you to go, Gabriel." Castiel makes the announcement quietly, completely unlike how Dean would have made it: with lots of 'fuck's and 'asshole's and rocks and fire. Lots of rocks _on_ fire. "Perhaps you ought to return to Heaven and report our findings on Moloch. Perhaps mention that we are going to contact Sariel…"

Gabriel pouts. "You're such a killjoy, Cas, you know that?"

That's _Dean's_ nickname, fuck you very much.

"Remember!" Gabriel says brightly, pointing at Dean with great enthusiasm, as if he can't read Dean's thoughts about setting him on fire and pushing him off a cliff. "Play it safe and double-bag it!"

"FUCKER!" The almost-whole duck he throws at Gabriel's stupid head goes through nothing and hits a counter with a dull splat, falling to the floor and spattering meat and crisp skin everywhere.

Bobby looks at it disinterestedly, then glares up at Dean. "I'm not cleanin' that up."

 

The old stairs creak beneath his socks as he follows Castiel and Sam up the stairs, Sam's huge feet tripping over Castiel's trench coat tails as they go. He's still kind of tired, even after having slept the afternoon away, and he traces exhaustion in the slump of Castiel's shoulders, the drag of Sam's feet. When they reach the top of the stairs, Sam yawns again and jerks his thumb toward his room.

"So, wake me up tomorrow?"

Dean nods, reaching out and kicking Sam in the shin. "Might as well. If we go pay this chick a visit, you're coming. I'm not fluent in Nerd and Cas can barely have a conversation in Normal. No offense, Cas."

Castiel says nothing, but he does stand a bit straighter, as if being tired isn't proper angel etiquette.

"Nice," Sam grumbles at the jab, and reaches right back and punches Dean in the shoulder. Right in the palm Castiel had left behind. _Ow_. "See you in the morning, jerk."

"Sweet dreams, bitch. C'mon, Cas, let's hit it." He turns on his heel and makes his way to his old room, the door still ajar from when he'd left it a few hours ago.

"Hit what, Dean?" Pause. "It's a figure of speech?"

"Got it in one." The room's warm enough that Dean doesn't need a shirt, so he strips it quickly and shivers as the air hits his bare skin. Castiel stands in the doorway, stiff and silent, watching him with eyes that shine in the dim moonlight that pours through the window. It's a clear night, perfect for sleeping, millions of stars visible through the pane.

He gestures toward the bed. "Ready?"

Castiel comes into the room, weariness dogging every step. He moves to his side of the bed with barely a sound, save the soft thump of the soles of his scuffed shoes. Dean makes a noise and Castiel looks up at him. "What?"

"Dude, you're really gonna sleep like that." He can't even believe that's comfortable. He'd forgotten all about the shoes last night; Castiel had slept in the complete tax accountant get-up.

"Sleep like what?" Castiel looks down at himself, genuinely not seeing the problem. For all he's watched of humanity, he's missing a few things. And by few, Dean means a lot.

He steps around the bed, misjudging its distance and awkwardly maneuvering around it, bumping his shins into the frame. Biting down a curse, he reaches out and tugs at a lapel. "You can't sleep in a coat. OR your shoes. Take 'em off."

"They are... not appropriate," Castiel says slowly, trying to keep up. Holding Dean's gaze, he lets the coat slide off of his shoulders, baring a slender neck and a surprisingly small frame. With the coat, he always looks so bulky, so much bigger, so much more like an angel probably should be. But without it, he looks... like a guy. A pretty, but nondescript guy, anybody that Dean could pass on the street. And he doesn't look like Jimmy Novak; he looks like Cas.

Throat dry, Dean steps back to give him some room. "And the shoes."

Glowering through his exhaustion, Castiel twitches and the shoes are gone, moved to the corner by the window, his feet covered by thin navy socks. He meets Dean's gaze and tilts his head, asking for approval. "Is this better?"

"No sleeping in a three-piece suit. Did anyone teach you about how humans actually live, or did they give you a textbook from the 50's and tell you to figure it out yourself from the diagrams?" As Dean babbles like a fucking moron, he takes the suit jacket and tugs it down Castiel's arms, the white dress shirt taking its place, light and wrinkled against his hands. He tosses the jacket somewhere over his shoulder, unbearably hot now, the room suddenly way warmer than it had been a minute ago. There's sweat on the back of his neck that he wants to wipe away, but his hand is moving of its own power now, tugging Castiel's tie until it slithers down his collarbone and hangs unattractively in Dean's hand.

Castiel's staring at him, like there's nothing wrong with this, like Dean's allowed to undress him. "Am I suitable for bed now?"

"Yeah," he croaks, unable to get enough air into his lungs, and it's just like this afternoon, minus the blood. He can't breathe right, and the attempt rattles in his chest, rocks in a tin can. "Yeah, you're good."

Nodding, Castiel turns and looks down at the bed. Dean follows his gaze and could swear that the sheets are going to strangle him the second he climbs in.

Castiel doesn't seem to see the monster lurking in the old linen, stepping away from Dean to slide in, lying on his back and staring up at Dean, one eye translucent in the moonlight and the other hidden in shadow. He's living a fucking cliché, struck dumb by the admittedly pretty picture Castiel paints, all dark and light contrasts, blue eyes burning, and he really, really can't breathe.

"Dean." Not a question. It's never a question with Castiel, always absolutes. Castiel's never uncertain. "Dean, come to bed."

Why. Why would he phrase it like that?

"Dean." Sharply.

Dean snaps to attention, crawling onto the old mattress, the fitted sheet bunching beneath his hands as he slides in on his stomach, and drops his head onto the pillow that smells like old sweat and even older sleepless nights.

They lie together in the dark -- Castiel on his back, staring at the ceiling, and Dean on his stomach, staring at Castiel -- silent except for Dean's shallow breathing. He slides his hands under his pillow, exhaling slowly at the coolness against his palms and the tops of his knuckles, rubbing his cheek into the pillowcase, suddenly bone-weary in a way that this afternoon's nap could never have fixed. But Castiel is still holding himself too tightly, stiff and taut and practically hanging off the edge of the bed.

He reaches out, because he's unsure and human in a way that Castiel is not and will never be, sliding his fingers across the small space between them until he touches the very edge of Castiel's pillowcase.

There's never been a moment like this for him, where he and someone else lay side-by-side in bed, in the darkness, close enough to touch save for the miles between them. Anytime there's ever been someone else in bed with him, they're usually on their back, on their knees, on top of him and riding him like the fucking Kentucky Derby was in town. Cassie came close, but there wasn't this. And this… he doesn't like this. _This_ is too intimate, too silent, missing the part where the rest of their clothes are thrown onto the floor and the sheets are soaked through with sweat and come. He doesn't like this because he doesn't know this. And what he doesn't know scares the shit out of him; this isn't something he can shoot in the face or fuck to regain some solid ground.

Dean studies Castiel's profile, the eye fixed on the ceiling, the sharp cheekbones and the unruly hair pressed into the pillow. And when did the bed acquire a second pillow? There's always been the one: his. What does it mean that Castiel has his own pillow in Dean's bed?

"I am sorry," Castiel says suddenly, scaring the ever loving fuck out of Dean. "Had I known that Raguel was no longer in Heaven, I would have placed you under the protection of another."

Like he really cares whose name is on the walls. "It worked, didn't it? Don't worry about it."

Castiel says nothing, not even to tell Dean to shut his stupid human mouth, which Dean feels has been a long time in coming. The corner of Castiel's mouth, the one facing Dean, pinches down in obvious displeasure, shadows dogging Castiel's pretty profile. He looks otherworldly, moreso half in darkness than in light.

"Heaven must have been fractured for a long time if Gabriel can speak so lightly of Raguel's absence," Castiel murmurs, gaze still on the ceiling. He's not going to find anything that Dean hasn't already catalogued: a bunch of cracks and some water damage, his timeline measured in structural wear.

He shifts forward a little, taking some of the weight off his lower back. "Why is it such a big deal about Raguel? Gabriel's been palling around down here for a pretty long time and no one seemed to care."

"Gabriel is not Raguel."

"Gabriel's not a lot of things," Dean mutters, withdrawing his hand. "But he _is_ an archangel, so wouldn't they miss him as much as Raguel?"

Castiel shifts and turns onto his side, facing Dean, hands tucked up against his chest. They're so close, bowing toward each other like parentheses, and Dean sucks in a breath at the way Castiel stares at him from where his cheek is pressed into the pillow.

"Raguel is not an archangel," Castiel whispers, as if he's afraid to say it too loud and incur the wrath of Heaven. Dean shifts closer so he can hear him better, until he can practically count every one of Castiel's eyelashes in the dark.

"What is he?" Dean asks, just as quietly, heart practically slamming into his ribcage. Castiel can probably hear it.

Castiel's tongue darts out and wets his lips, Dean helpless but to follow the movement. "After God created a space to put all manners of His wonders, He made the first being, Raguel, and called him _mal'akh, angelos, engel_. There came a clamor across the space, a great light, and the first stars were born, each in his likeness. Glory be to Raguel."

Wait, what? "Wait, what?"

The way Castiel's eyelashes dip tells Dean just how lucky he is that Castiel hangs around him at all, never mind sleeping in the same bed with him. "Raguel was the first angel, Dean."

Dean's mouth parts slightly, surprised, and he closes it quickly when he feels a small trickle of drool trying to make a break for freedom. He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip, just to be sure. Can't have Castiel think the angels are right and that humans are nothing but a bunch of retards. "I thought... Wait, then who are the Seven? Aren't they the top dogs?"

"I don't understand what you mean by that," Castiel says, eyes wide and confused in the dark, "but the Seven are the angels permitted to stand in God's presence. They are the highest in the hierarchy, with only Raguel and the Metatron above them."

"Wait, so, that thing you just said? That was, what, a creation story? You guys have those?"

Castiel's cheek rubs into the worn pillowcase once, almost imperceptible except for the sound his skin makes against the fabric, and, holy Christ, he's nestling into it. Having Castiel sleep in his bed is such a nominally bad idea, but Dean's practically built an empire on bad ideas and he can't feel guilty about kinda-sorta-almost-totally getting off on this. As much as he wants to, he can't call this morning's awkward wake-up call something it's not. Because it totally was what he doesn't want it to be. What he wants it to be.

"You humans," Castiel says, almost fondly. "You think you make up concepts and ideas yourselves, and feel so proud of the fact. But, yes, of course Heaven has creation stories; it is the origin of creation itself. How could we not?"

Well, when you put it that way. "So, Raguel was the first angel. Who came next?"

"A star, burning brightest in the space, changed and no longer bore Raguel's likeness. It burned hotter and brighter until it burst, and echoed across the space, a sound so strong it rivaled God's own. And thus he was called Metatron, the Tongue of God. Glory be to Metatron."

Dean stares. "That's how it happened."

"Yes. This is the song we are all taught upon birth. This is how the first angels came to be."

"What about the Seven? What about Lucifer?" Does every angel in Heaven have their own creation story? How does anyone keep fucking track of them all? He can barely memorize a poem, never mind an endless number of baby book stories. Sam probably could; there seems to be a bottomless pit of storage space in that IMAX forehead of his.

Castiel nods, shifting, the tips of his hair just brushing the skin above Dean's brow. Dean's heart starts beating faster; any faster and it's going to pull an _Alien_ and pop right out of his chest.

"They have their stories. Gabriel's is particularly moving."

"I couldn't give a shit about how Gabriel was born. Probably screaming and crying like the fucking baby he is," Dean grumbles into his pillow, rubbing his nose back and forth until the skin goes tight with it. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Do you have a creation story?"

Castiel doesn't answer him and Dean turns his face away from the pillow and meets that gaze, something catching and locking. His heart, going wild within his chest, just _stops_. Castiel licks his lips again, closer than the first time he did it, and Dean's eyes are drawn down to his mouth.

It would be so easy. So, so easy. He wouldn't have to move much at all, just turn his face just so, and that would be it. Effortless, warm and, god, right there. He doesn't think Castiel would push him away; Castiel might just part those lips and invite Dean's tongue inside, hot and unmapped and wanting. Heat zings through his belly, traveling down like lightning, like water, and his cock stirs in interest, pressing against his boxers.

So easy. It would be just... easy.

"I don't know. I… have never thought about it."

"Tell me about Hell."

For a really long moment, as long as Castiel's stunned silence, Dean isn't sure who asked that. It isn't until Castiel sucks in a breath that he realizes _he_ was the idiot who ruined it. Castiel had been about to tell him something huge, and Dean interrupts to ask him about forty years of torture. Gabriel was right; how is he even alive?

"What about Hell?" It almost sounds defensive the way Castiel asks, and Dean wants to just turn his head and make it easy. First, he has to put out the forest fire he just started, and should probably stop throwing cigarette butts into clumps of dead leaves to begin with.

"I… don't remember anything about it. Not really." Which is such a lie. He used to dream about it nightly, and the feeling of bloodlust crops up more than he's comfortable with. And Castiel is totally going to call him out on it, having been the one to rescue him from some of those nightmares in the past. What he really wants, but can't outright ask about, is to know what happened when Castiel pulled him out. Gabriel made a big stink about it, and the Metatron got a crack or two in. Castiel had disobeyed orders during that whole mess, but Dean has no idea why, or how, or when.

Except, perfect. Castiel is shifting back, away from him, and the hair's width of a distance between them gapes into a schism as Castiel puts his head back into the middle of his pillow.

"Cas --" This isn't how it was supposed to go.

"It was cold."

Dean freezes.

"I had never experienced temperature before. I had the knowledge of it, that cold was the opposite of hot, that the poles of the Earth were full of ice and snow, that plants cannot grow in it. But I had never felt it. I, like many, had believed Hell would be… fire. The moment I made it through the gates, I was cold. I could not fly as fast as I wanted to, or maneuver the way I should have been able to. It slowed me. Later, I realized it was because my connection to the Host was severed.

"There are nine levels. Your literature attaches sins to them, but there are no clearly defined boundaries between one sin and another. There are nine levels, but I couldn't tell where one ended and the next began. It was just… endless torture. I flew for months and months before I found a break in the writhing mass, before there was a reprieve. The souls… reached for me, tore at me, at my wings. Covered me with ash and blood and vitriol. It was not long before I grew heavy with their rage and agony; they called out to me to stop and save them. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, even children. All pleading for me to show them mercy, to be as an angel ought and lift them out of the sulfur. I did not know why any of them were there, what their crimes were, what an infant could have done to warrant punishment in the Pit… and I didn't care." Castiel closes his eyes for a moment, reliving the nightmares that plague Dean way too often. "My only concern was finding you."

Dean struggles to get the words out around the lump of blood and sand in his throat. "How long…" He swallows and tries again. "How long did you look? How long were you there?"

"Forty years."

Fuck. No. No, no --

"In the instant Azazel dragged you down, I left to follow you." Castiel pauses, and Dean's eternally grateful for it. He needs a second to regroup, to reevaluate everything he's ever thought since meeting Castiel in that barn.

"God, Cas --"

Castiel's eyes are soft when they open, sad and strong and stupidly beautiful. "I was not fast enough."

It's more than he wanted to know. His skin feels too tight for his body, stretched too thin and barely containing everything inside. If he moves, if he breathes or tries to look away from Castiel's piercing stare, he's going to fly apart.

Castiel had spent forty years completely cut off from everything he knew, everything that made him an angel, so he could pull Dean's ass out of the fire. Dean had kept an angel in Hell for forty years.

"Dean, no," Castiel says sharply, a harsh bark of air. "You can't take any blame for this."

"How can you even say that? Dude, can you hear yourself? You were in Hell all that time… what does that do to angel? How did you stand it? Did you stop at some point? Did you rest?"

There's nothing but absolute certainty on the pillow next to him. "There was no time."

Christ. He'd broken after thirty years; Castiel had flown non-stop for forty.

"And boy, I bet you're so glad you did. What a prize, huh?"

Castiel frowns. "What do you mean?"

He tries to stop the laugh that rises up, tries to lock his jaw and clamp his teeth down before it gets too far, but he can't, and he's laughing. Just, cracking up so hard. It's hilarious, in the way that it isn't at all. "You pulled me out for nothing, Cas. Your righteous man -- all that to get me out, and what did I do to show for it? I got Jesus killed and ended up starting an even _worse_ war than the one I was trying to keep from happening."

The scandalized look on Castiel's face, the wide eyes and open mouth, only fuels the fire. He's on a roll now.

"What was the point, Cas? Why do it if we were just gonna end up here? What a fucking waste. You should've taken the kids you saw instead; at least then you'd have saved someone worthwhile."

Man, this is so fucked. He presses his nose into his pillow and inhales deeply; it grounds him, keeps him from flying everywhere.

Was this what Zachariah meant when he said Dean wouldn't be able to stop the Apocalypse? Even the wrong Apocalypse. It'd kill him if Zachariah were entitled to 'I Told You So' rights, because if that fucker were alive he'd use them for the rest of eternity. However long that might be.

A hand clamps down really fucking _hard_ on his bicep, fingers lying against their own outline and digging in. White heat flares up suddenly, his eyes rolling back in his skull, and he bounces forth between the greatest pleasure he's ever known, just sharp, rolling waves of it that seem like they're never going to quit, and pain that makes Hell look like a goddamn tea party. If there were a way to bottle this feeling, he'd make a killing and watch the end of the world from the balcony of his castle/fort/mansion/Richard Branson's outhouse.

Dean sucks in a whimper as Castiel rolls practically on top of him, tightening his hold, and he's seriously going to come in his boxers or _die_.

"Don't you _dare_ undermine your sacrifice," Castiel growls, eyes electric blue above him, his not-quite-breath washing over Dean's lips. "You were not there for your sins, or for the crimes you committed under Alistair's influence. You were there because you loved; I came for you because you fully deserved to be saved."

He sucks in a gasp, squirming against where Castiel's knee digs into his hip, but Castiel doesn't let up. If anything, Castiel leans closer. Their noses brush and Dean presses his head into the pillow, clenching down around the moan that wants out.

"You were under orders," Dean bites out, and Castiel freezes, not-quite-breath disappearing altogether. "God commanded it, remember?"

The weight leaves him, and _no_. God, bring it back. He wants it.

Castiel releases his arm and sits back, shirt disheveled, hair an absolute mess. He looks every bit the Castiel, angel of the Lord, who didn't know about grooming oneself and that walking around with a bloody coat full of bullet holes would raise some eyebrows. And, fuck, he looks as frightening, cold and beautiful as he did that night. No, he's even better now, the coat off and his Bible camp days behind him.

Castiel stares down at him, eyes moving restlessly over Dean's face, and Dean feels it like a physical touch. "Yes. I was under orders."

Dean swallows and pushes himself up onto his elbows, ignoring the strain in his back, which seems pretty insignificant. "Except God left the building. So, who gave the order?"

"The Metatron."

"That was the order you disobeyed."

Castiel's gaze stabs through him like his own goddamn knife, right in the heart. "Yes."

He pulls himself up to sit, which brings him close to Castiel again, his nose brushing against Castiel's cheek when he turns his head. Castiel says nothing, and Dean's not sure if it's muscle memory or consciously done, but Castiel tilts his head just so, slightly enough to not really be noticeable. The very top of his upper lip collides with the corner of Castiel's mouth. His heart pounds the way it did when he was twelve and being kissed for the first time by Megan Day, a senior in high school who'd thought using her body would be payment enough for being saved from a vampire. Dean had taken the kiss, but turned down the rest.

This is so much scarier, so much riding on it, and he exhales on a shudder, Castiel's lashes brushing his cheek. They haven't even kissed yet, and he wants to just smother Castiel's lips with his own, just jump in and get it over with. Something thrills in his stomach, like butterflies but bigger, and it rides up into his chest until he thinks he actually might be having a heart attack.

Castiel touches the bridge of his nose to Dean's, their foreheads pressed together, and they breathe.

"How?" He whispers hoarsely. Is that really his voice? It sounds like he's been chewing on glass for an hour. "How did you disobey?"

The mouth he wants so badly tips toward his own -- so close that the tiny hairs on the outline of his upper lip stand to attention, at the ready -- but then retreats altogether, leaving him bereft and really fucking confused. There's a guy on a drum in his heart, banging away, and Dean watches as Castiel moves back to his side of the bed, settling down with his back to him.

Pretty obvious way to end the conversation.

If this is a rejection, it's the worst he's ever had. The drumbeat in his chest stops abruptly, and he shivers, adrenaline still rushing through him with no outlet, leaving him staring dumbly at Castiel's back and shoulders, which have gone stiff as a bowstring. He doesn't know what to do, if he should lay down and forget this ever happened, pull the same shit he tried this morning, or roll Castiel over onto his back and finish what they almost started.

Fuck, he's turned into a fifteen-year old girl.

Silently lying down, facing Castiel, even if the bastard won't look at him, he reaches out and places his hand firmly between Castiel's shoulder blades, the body beneath his palm twitching at his touch. If there are wings on either side of his hand, he hopes they're sensitive as hell and that Castiel is feeling all of it.

"Do you regret it?" If there's anything that he needs from Castiel, it's this. "Disobeying. Whatever you did. You ever regret it?"

When a minute or two passes without an answer, he starts to remove his hand. Fuck this. Fuck _him_. There are six bars within ten miles of Bobby's, and he'd bet that there are at least five girls in each of them, all waiting for someone to buy them a drink and bring them into the bathroom for a rough quickie.

"Not once."

Dean freezes, the tips of his fingers grazing the white, wrinkled dress shirt. "What?"

"Not once have I regretted it."

In those six bars within ten miles of Bobby's, there will be someone for those girls, someone who'll buy them drinks and take them into the bathroom for sex. It's not going to be him.

Grunting, Dean slides his hand from between Castiel's shoulders over to the dip in his side, curving his hand to fit there like it was made for him, and Castiel softens under his palm.

"Sleep, Dean."

Yeah. Yeah, sounds good.


	9. Part Eight

_There is a carnival. A ferris wheel. Popcorn on the ground. Laughter and the bells of music._

 _He ambles through the crowds, the smell of fried dough and sugar cloyingly sweet and heavy on his tongue. The rides are lit up with stars and sunsets, smiling and shrieking passengers lifting their arms in delight as the pirate ship swings back and forth, threatening to turn completely upside down, as the tea cups spin wildly._

 _As he turns a corner, passing by the Cannonball rollercoaster and the long line of people waiting to ride it, he sees a little girl in a threadbare dress standing alone, holding a worn stuffed animal in her hand, its moth-eaten ears brushing dirty candy wrappers on the ground. Her eyes are closed. No one pays her any mind._

 _He walks up to her and asks if she's lost. She doesn't answer._

 _He asks again, and in reply she slips her little hand into his, tucking her stuffed animal, a dog, into the crook of her other arm. Her eyes are still closed._

 _They walk by all the rides, all the clowns spitting fire into the air and making smoke shapes, until they reach a mile-long stretch of games. Try your luck, they call out to them, gesturing at all the prizes hanging on the walls of their kiosks._

 _Do you want a new dog?_

 _She doesn't answer, so he tugs her along and stops at a shooting game, a giant stuffed neon-blue dog nailed to the wall. Only three tries -- knock the cans off the wall and win a prize._

 _He takes the gun, lighter than anything he's ever used, and looks through the sight. He adjusts the settings on the gun, much to the dismay of the operator, and fires thrice in succession. He points to the dog. I want that one, for this little girl here._

 _He holds out the dog, bigger than her, and she doesn't take it. Come on. I won it for you. It's new._

 _The wind picks up and blows candy wrappers and fliers around, a slip of white paper among them. The girl tugs on his hand and points. He takes her into his arms -- she's so light -- and runs after it. It blows up, into the sky, and disappears._

 _I thought I saw it blow into a Ferris wheel car, the man from the concession stand says in Tasmanian. He's operating a rollercoaster now._

 _The girl tugs his hand again, pulling him down until he kneels before her._

 _Her eyes open. They've been burned out._

 _"Chilcuautla."_

 

There's a bird screaming next to his head. He's never heard anything like it before, which means it's probably exotic and endangered. And it obviously wants to go extinct, because he's going to kill it. With his face.

Something heavy shifts on his back, an arm thrown over his side, and a nose nuzzles the back of his neck, lips murmuring something that he can't quite hear over the shrieking, but he definitely feels the thigh that pushes between his. _Good_ morning.

Sleep leaves him like the fleeting bitch she is, and new-found clarity tells him that it's not a bird on the nightstand next to him, but his phone. His ringing phone. That ringtone needs to change, immediately.

Grunting, Dean reaches out, feeling around on the wooden table before closing his fingers over his phone. The display shows a number that he doesn't recognize; telemarketers should know better than to call him, especially after the last one called in the middle of a hunt. He's never heard a girl cry like that, and he's pretty sure word traveled fast after that. Must be a trainee or something.

"Yeah?" He coughs, clearing the shit out of his throat, and tries again. "Hello?"

 _"Good morning, Mr. Kent! Did you know that_ Tyrannosaurus rex _means 'king lizard'?"_

Andy. Oh, Christ, he'd given the kid his number and told him to call any time, day or night. One day he won't be a sucker for a pretty face or a _young_ face.

"Hey, Andy." The kid can't possibly have called to talk about dinosaurs. Dean's luck is bad, but it's not that bad. "What's up?"

The genuine cheerfulness can be heard over the phone. _"For homework, I hadda write about dinosaurs an' I looked 'em up on the internet an' T-rex is the best. Did you know that their babies had feathers, like birds? An' birds are evolutioned dinosaurs? So all the birds in the world are dinosaurs! 'Cept they shrunk an' sing instead of eat people."_

Castiel grumbles under his breath and presses closer, warm and suffocating, wrapped around him like he's not planning on letting go anytime soon, which is awesome for Dean but less so for Dean's bladder. He has to piss like a racehorse.

"Andy, what time is it?" The room's not terribly bright.

 _"The clock says six... six forty-two, no, three! Daddy's making pancakes after he’s done with re'valuating his decision to pro-procreate, an' I want them to have chocolate chips. An' shapes! We have these things that make pancakes into cars an' trains! You put the pancake stuff into them an' they cook into shapes an' I want dinosaur shapes so I can be a T-rex an' eat them all!"_

"I don't like that child," Castiel growls, hiding his face between Dean's back and the pillow.

No, shit. Dean doesn't like _anyone_ right now. "Sounds good, Andy."

 _"Can you come an' have pancakes with us? I'll save all the trains for you, 'cause you're faster than them so you can eat them too."_ With logic like that, it's going to be hard to say no. Even at six in the fucking morning, the kid's cute.

"Sorry, Andy, but I've got some important Justice League business to take care of today," he says, a bit sad that he won't be able to have train-shaped pancakes. Moloch's the kind of guy who'd buy his kid eighteen different syrups, and Dean'd use every single one of them. "But maybe next time. You eat the trains for me."

 _"Okay, Mr. Kent! An' I'm gonna go to school an' I'm not gonna kick Brendan 'cause he takes my snacks, 'cause I'm not using my powers to hurt."_

Dean wants to tell him to beat the shit out of Brendan, but he bites it back, because he's a fucking role model now. "Good boy. You're gonna be an awesome superhero someday."

 _"Bye, Mr. Kent! I'm gonna go jump on Daddy, 'cause he can't still be re'valuating."_ The line goes dead with a click, and Dean snaps his phone shut, tossing it back onto the nightstand with a yawn.

Dean manages to extricate himself from Castiel's vice-hold, and Jesus, that angel strength would be useful at taking apart cars. Castiel mutters into Dean's pillow and pulls the covers tighter around him, making a cocoon for himself that only leaves a tuft of hair visible. Grinning, Dean leaves him to it, slips his phone into his pocket, and pads down to the bathroom, scratching at Castiel's mark absently.

He pisses for an eternity and splashes some water on his face, staring at his reflection in the fingerprint-smudged mirror above the sink. The dark circles under his eyes speak of a series of sleepless nights, but he's never felt so well-rested, even after last night's... whatever that was. It'd been hot, and too much, and scary as hell. But mostly hot. Hotter than anything he's ever done before, which is saying something, because they didn't even kiss.

His reflection grins back at him, and he winks at it. "Next time."

By the time he makes it downstairs, Sam's already been awake long enough to brew a pot of coffee and search the internet for Apocalypse-related stuff. He probably has a whole folder in his bookmarks for that shit. If the laptop is ever confiscated, they're going to lock Sam away for years. It's going to be all padded walls and medicine at bedcheck.

"Hey," Sam says, glancing up from the screen as Dean walks into the living room. "Sleep well?"

Ignoring the sly tone in Sam's voice, Dean nicks the laptop as he passes by.

"What the hell! I was using that!"

"All that internet porn isn't good for you, Dr. Jerkenstein. Time to give it a rest." He settles on the couch and sets the laptop down on the coffee table, knocking his knees against the edge of it.

Sam grumbles something under his breath, but Dean is too busy using the sissy touch pad to pull up Google. He has no idea how to spell it, but he gives it a shot, then clicks the link that reads Did You Mean "Chilcuautla"? Yes, thank you, Google. He knows he can't speak or read a word of Spanish.

There are over 67,000 hits for Chilcuautla, most of the sites carrying information about it or about festivals happening in the city this year. He has a feeling that this isn't what the girl with the burnt-out eyes wanted him to see, so he keeps looking. At some point, Sam gets off his lazy ass and stands behind the couch, reading over his shoulder.

"You looking to take a vacation?" Sam asks, confused, and Dean snorts, clicking to go to page 16 of results.

"I thought we were going to Hawaii if we ever did a vacation," he says absently, reading through the page. Nothing worth looking at. He clicks for the next page.

Sam laughs above him. "Dude, I remember that. We were going to go diving to look at stingrays."

"Or you were, you fruit."

"You want to talk about fruits? Let's ask Cas --"

"Dude, shut up for a sec." Dean clicks a link that looks promising. He knows what 'niña' and 'ángel' mean, and it's the closest thing to what he's trying to find. Of course, the page is all in Spanish. Fuck. "Sam, you speak any Spanish?"

"I took one semester before I switched to Latin. I can't remember anything from it. Sorry. What are you looking for?" Sam swings one of his tree-trunk legs over the back of the couch and slides down to sit next to him, peering at the computer screen in interest.

 _Una madre afirma que un ángel visitara su hija en la ciudad de Chilcuautla. La policía ha observado a Benicia Soto, 28, despues de los vecinos encontraron la hija de Soto, Paz, sin ojos y oído. Soto le dijo a la policía que un ángel le manifestara ante a Paz y la dió la regala de profecía._

Dean shakes his head and clicks back to the search results, looking for a translation option. None. Perfect. He clicks back on the link and tries to piece together anything that might help. He knows 'nina', and he thinks 'angel' is exactly what it looks like. This is it.

"'A mother claims an angel visited her daughter in the city of Chilcuautla. Benicia Soto, 28, has come under observation after neighbors found Soto's daughter, Paz, without eyes or hearing. Soto told authorities an angel appeared before her daughter and gave her the gift of foresight.'"

That's it?

Dean and Sam both look over their shoulders, and Castiel stares back at them. It'd have more of an effect if his hair weren't such a fucking disaster.

"Hey," Dean says, unable to stop the grin that spreads across his face. The fluttering in his stomach is bad news bears. "Nice hair."

"So, you speak Spanish," Sam points out, surprised. It's pretty cool, but Dean's still focused on Castiel's hair. His could-have-had-sex-but-I-guess-you'll-never-know hair.

Castiel nods, like it's obvious. "I speak all languages."

Oh, Christ, Sam's gonna let loose with the nerdgasms in a second. "Say something in… I don't know, Korean!"

"No." Burn. "Why are you reading this?"

Dean points to it, the words still foreign as hell to him, even with Castiel's surprise translation. "Dude, this kid could be, like, important. Shouldn't we check it out, maybe see if she's seen what's coming?"

Castiel tilts his head and regards Dean, consideringly. Dean shifts awkwardly on the couch and feels something poking his ass from beneath the cushion. Probably an old beer bottle; they're more likely to be lying around than loose change or the remote control.

"She can't be a prophet," Castiel says, now looking at the both of them. "I know of every prophet there has ever been; no two prophets exist at the same time."

Sam blinks. "But, the Bible -- the Gospels?"

"Compiled at different times, before publication, so as to appear to have been completed simultaneously. As soon as one passed, another was born. Right now, Chuck Shurley is the only prophet." Castiel makes a move to touch the laptop, maybe shut it so they can focus on more important things -- like the war that's starting in four days.

Dean intercepts Castiel's hand, sliding his thumb against a smooth palm and curling his fingers over soft knuckles hiding unknown strength. Sam coughs, but Castiel simply stares, eyes wide. Dean squeezes the hand in his once before letting it go. "I dreamed about her, Cas."

Both Castiel and Sam snap to attention, but it's Castiel who speaks first. "You dreamed of this child."

"Dean, you never mentioned having any dreams... Have you dreamed about stuff like this before?" Sam looks frightened, almost hurt at the implication that Dean didn't trust him enough to tell him about any prophetic dreams he might be having. Like Dean knew about the demon blood addiction beforehand and just let Sam fall.

Dean stands up, knocking his knees against the table again. Which really fucking stings. "Look, all I dreamed was that the girl and I were at a carnival and she told me where to find her. In Mexico. That's it. She didn't say anything about being a prophet, or angels. I played a game for her and won her a stuffed animal. That's it." But it's not. There's something more that he's missing, and he knows it's there, but he can't quite grasp it. All he remembers is the girl in her threadbare dress.

Castiel frowns. "Perhaps... it would be prudent to look into it. Have you spoken to Chuck recently?"

Dean snorts. "Not if I can help it."

"Dean," Sam scolds, then turns to Castiel. "No, neither of us have. I haven't since... we met him."

Oh, yes, the thing with Lilith in the motel room. And Dean getting hit by a van. Good times. "I haven't seen him since the archangel."

Castiel tilts his chin at Dean, and he really shouldn't do that again. All that skin bared just for him. "Dean, call him and see if he knows anything of this."

Great. Way to start the day off right by talking to an overexcited half-demon kid and a drunk before eight A.M. He reaches into his front left jeans pocket and pulls out his phone, scrolling through the numbers stored there until he reaches Chuck's. It takes a ring and a half for him to answer.

 _"Oh, thank God. I've been tearing apart my place, trying to find your number."_

"Uh, morning, Chuck," he says haltingly. "You sound -- sober…"

 _"I am so happy you called, Dean."_ Chuck sounds happy. Way too happy.

Except, wait. "You weren't expecting my call? Isn't that what you do, feed me my lines before I even open my mouth?"

Sam frowns and gestures with his hands, making absolutely no sense whatsoever, which is nothing new. Castiel stands silently, head cocked, listening. Angelic superhearing.

 _"That's just it! I haven't had a vision since the archangel! It's completely stopped. Heaven's not giving me anything, which, I gotta tell you, is a frigging load off. Do you have any idea how much money I spent a month on booze?"_

Castiel's brows beetle and Dean shrugs at him. "So, you've got nothing for me."

 _"What's going on, Dean? Is the Apocalypse still a go? God, you need to give me something. I'm dying here -- and my agent's getting antsy."_

"I'll let you know." He snaps his phone shut and looks at Castiel as he tucks it back into his pocket. "So."

Sam stands up, towering over both him and Castiel. "What did Chuck say?"

Chuck said a million things in only a few words. He told Dean that there's been a disconnect somewhere, that Heaven doesn't think it's important enough to let their resident prophet know what's going on. After all, if all the humans are going to be caught in the battle and completely wiped out, what's the point of having a human voice acting as Public Relations?

"He said enough to warrant a trip to Mexico."

The back door in the kitchen bangs shut, and Bobby comes trampling in with his own cell phone. The thing's a fucking brick, one of the models from the late nineties. Time for an upgrade. "The hell is going on in here? Commune?"

Sam purses his lips. "We might have a bit of a prophet issue."

Bobby nods at Dean in greeting and spares a look for Castiel, acknowledging his presence, although he does a double-take at the lack of the coat and tie. "Well, we got bigger problems than your lush of a prophet. Just got a call from Nan Thrush in Boston. Looks like ol' Lucifer might be finally getting his head into the game. There've been a few sightings of something big breaching in the harbor up there."

"The Leviathan?" Castiel inquires. "Have your hunters confirmed?"

"Considering no one knows what the damn thing looks like, no." Bobby rolls his left shoulder. "Illustrations in old texts can only get us so far."

Sam crosses his arms, face scrunched in concentration, and it reminds Dean of how he looked at ten and making that face, looking so stern and serious for someone so young. It was hilarious, then; now it just makes Sam look like a pug. "If it is the Leviathan, how do we kill it?"

Dean shrugs and belches from the lack of food in his stomach, keeping his mouth closed so it doesn't make too much noise. He's mature now. "I say that we ought to go check out the girl in Mexico first. As long as we don't drink the water, it might be worth it."

"I don't understand."

"Trust me on this one, Cas: you don't want to."

 

On the few occasions in his life that Mexico crossed his mind, it usually had more to do with chupacabras or duendes than it did the actual place. There have been a few Mexican hunters that he and Sam worked with in the past, all decent guys, but they never spoke of their homeland, the people, the landscape. If he were forced to imagine it, it'd probably be all dirt and play dough houses.

It's the stark white stone that he notices first. The buildings are solid, rounded at the edges with open windows and doorways, splashes of brilliant color taking up the sides in the forms of plants and flags. Up on his left is one of the coolest-looking churches he's ever seen.

"Suck on _this_ , America," Dean mutters, waving at a woman who comes out of a shop that's painted bright green. She smiles and waves back.

He glances to his right where Sam walks next to him, taking it all in with bright, interested eyes, his inner college kid slowly kicking to the surface and ready to write an essay on the whole place. Sam catches Dean's eye and grins, gesturing to the church, which really _is_ awesome.

Castiel just walks with his unshakable purpose, barely sparing any attention for the people watching their slow march down the dirt road. Even when someone lifts a hand in greeting.

"Be a little nicer, Cas, and they might not shank you."

Sam elbows him right in the ribs. Ass. "Do yourself a favor and look strong and dumb. It's what you do best."

"You're the best brother ever."

"I know."

" _Excúsanos, señor_ ," Castiel says suddenly, breaking away from their three-man parade and walking over to a guy who looks like he's spent all of his life sunbathing.

The man smiles. He's missing a few teeth, but fuck if his smile isn't infectious, because Dean's grinning like an idiot.

" _¡Buenos días, forastero! Bienvenidos a nuestra ciudad._ " Reaching out, the man holds out a hand for Castiel to shake. He looks over at all of them, his dark eyes lingering on Dean. " _¿Eres americano?_ "

Okay, he caught 'good morning' and 'Americans'. So far so good.

" _No_ ," Castiel answers, practically purring over the word. Fuck, it's as good as when he speaks Latin and Enochian, but somehow closer to Earth. " _Soy un ángel de Dios. Estamos buscando a Benicia Soto. ¿La conoce?_ "

The man's smile morphs into a grin, then he gestures to him and Sam. " _¿Y ellos?_ "

" _Son humanos míos._ "

Dean would appreciate some subtitles, or maybe for Castiel to use his angel mojo and translate the words into their minds. Or just be a sport and translate them out loud. Even Sam's starting to look uncomfortable.

" _¿Lo dices en serio?_ " The man is outright beaming now, and there are people starting to come out of the buildings, mostly children, a few with their dogs in tow. Dean glances over his shoulder and sees a little boy, no more than four, standing in a Run DMC shirt that's way too big for him.

" _Sí. Es muy importante que la encóntremos."_

"Cas, what the hell are you talking about?" Because their audience is starting to grow, and he has a feeling it's not because they're three Americans wandering around in a random city in Mexico, no bags or anything on them.

" _Díme, forastero,_ " the man says loudly, probably for the benefit of the people watching. " _¿Porque necesitas encontrar a Benicia?_ "

" _Necesitamos hablar con su hija, Paz._ " Castiel waits a moment, lets it sink in, and Dean watches as the smile slips from the man's face to be replaced by an awed sort of fear. Maybe the dude's finally cluing in and noticing that Castiel, for all that he looks like a human, really isn't. It's probably the stare; Dean's used to it, and it's endearing now, but to other people it must be fucking weird.

The man opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. " _¿Conoces a Paz?_ "

" _Sí_."

" _¿Es eso verdad? ¿Pachita habla con los ángeles?_ " The man looks like he's going to cry, or get down on his knees before Castiel, or both. It's a reminder to never let Castiel into a church congregation and open his big, dumb mouth.

Sam curses under his breath and gives Dean a pointed look. "You know anything about Mexico?"

"Just about their food and how it doesn't like me." If he wants a burrito, he has to eat it on the toilet. Because there's just no time.

"Their last consensus showed that 95% of the population is Christian, 89% of them Catholics."

Dean stares at Sam. "Why do you even know that?"

"An angel visiting someone here? Big news." Sam turns back to watch the show, leaving Dean to stand there and wonder just where he went wrong as a big brother.

"Dude, you need a hobby. Really badly."

" _¿Puede decirnos adonde a los Sotos viven, por favor?_ " Dean still has no idea what the hell Castiel is saying but Castiel's definitely putting all the power of Heaven behind it.

The guy nods dumbly, eyes wet, and points down the road. " _Van a por esta calle hasta que llegan al lago pequeño. La casa de Benicia está a la derecha; hay las cruces en todas partes._ "

Head tilting, Castiel reaches out with his two fingers of doom and brushes them against the man's forehead. " _Gracias, Enzo Arenas, ha sido de gran ayuda._ "

The man falls back from Castiel's touch, his mouth gaping wide, trembling, and he scrambles onto his knees as Castiel starts down the road without waiting for them to follow. Dean exchanges a look with Sam, who looks just as confused and out of place as he probably does, and they walk quickly after them.

" _Los ángeles! Los ángeles están aquí! Alaba a Dios!_ "

They manage to catch up to Castiel, who's striding along with a purpose, his coat flapping behind him like wings. Dean matches his stride, Sam doing the same with his gigantor legs, and it all feels very walk to The Right Stuff.

"So?" Sam asks. There are children running alongside the road, giggling and pointing at Sam, shouting 'Un gigante!', which is the greatest thing ever. "What's going on?"

"I asked for directions." They're coming up to a small pond now, murky and filled with algae and bugs that walk on top of the water. There are clouds of flies buzzing over the surface, and Dean wouldn't swim in there for a million dollars.

"Dude, we stood there for, like, ten minutes and you put the whammy on that dude. What kind of directions did you _get_?"

They take a right at the pond where four houses stand, each of them slightly dilapidated and but still cool-looking. Dean's really kind of liking that bumpy, stipple texture. One of the houses is covered with crosses, nailed to the outside in the most random of places. It's like a religious serial killer's dream neighborhood.

"Christ," Sam mutters, staring. "Talk about protection."

Something moves near the ground, and at first he thinks it's a cat until he sees the faded pink stripes, the bare feet. It's a kid, playing in the dirt, moving rocks on top of each other until they make shaky spires and towers, like a city.

"Hey. Er, _hola_." And that pretty much exhausts his Spanish. "Whatcha making there?"

The little hands leave the rocks where they are, and the small body gets to its knees. He knows that dress, those feet, the stuffed dog nearby. The girl turns around and presents him with puffy cheeks, a tiny mouth, and twin black holes for eyes. It makes him think of Pamela, the way her empty stare would creep him out like nothing else, because how do you function without your eyes? He knows millions do it every day, but he can't understand how.

"Hey, little girl. Uh, _niña_."

"This must be her," Sam says, tripping over something as he makes his way over. Castiel follows passively, watching the little girl with hard eyes.

Castiel nods. "She has been touched by an angel."

Dean inelegantly hides a laugh as a cough. "Okay, Roma, so what now?" The girl's still staring at Dean with frightening accuracy.

The girl tilts her head and lifts her hand, fingers waggling in a wave. Dean grins.

There's a groan of old wood, and Dean looks up to see a woman lurking in the doorway of the house.

" _¿Qué quieren?_ "

 

Benicia looks like she hasn't slept in weeks, her hair dry and matted, eyes weary and bearing dark circles under them. She'd probably be cute after a nap and maybe something to eat, but she seems pretty alert, welcoming. She takes one look at Castiel and knows that he's more than either Dean or Sam, despite Paz having an affinity for Dean. He's just good with kids.

She doesn't invite them inside, which Dean's sort of okay with. They don't need to intrude any more than they already have.

" _Mi madre siempre me decía que los angeles estaban buscandonos. No la creía... hasta el incidente._ "

Sam's looking at Benicia, at Paz, and wondering why this is their life.

Dean's looking at Paz, who's looking right back. She hands him a stone, smooth and cool despite the heat of the sun, and he takes it with a smile. "Uh, _gracias_." Not like she can hear him.

Castiel is standing like the creep he is, not even bothering to take a seat on a rock or something. " _Díganos que pasó._ "

She shudders and nods. " _Occurió hace dos meses. Trabajo para un costurera y me marchó al trabajo temprano. Cuando vine a casa, Paz y yo cenamos. Ahorría de sobra para comprar la pescado, mejor de la que comemos normalmente. Entonces, nos acostamos._

 _El ruido… Fue el ruido que me despertó. Nunca había oído nada parecido. Era doloroso, pero Paz no le importa. La luz, tambien. Era tan brillante que mis ojos quemaban. Intenté taparse los ojos, pero se escapó. No pude ni ver ni oír nada. Pero Paz… Paz estaba hablando a la luz. Sus orejas estaban sangrando. Sus ojos estaban sangrando. Pero, estaba escuchando. Y de repente… había terminado._ "

Sucking in a sob, Benicia drops her head into her hand and takes a moment. Sam shifts uncomfortably at Dean's side. He has no idea what she's saying, but it's obviously fucked up. She must be recounting the angel's visit. And really, he knows how she feels.

" _Paz no me podía ni ver ni oír. Sus ojos había desaparecido. Estaba sorda. Pero, estaba muy contenta y dijo que un angel le había hablado. Le había regalado un otro tipo de vista. Puede ver el futuro._

 _"Llamé a la policia, pero creía que estaba loca. Se lo dije a mis vecinos… algunos me creían. Somos muy religiosos aquí. Vamos a la iglesia todo el día. No fue dificil creerlo. La llamaron una profeta; dicen que habló con los ángeles._

 _"Algo pasó esa noche. ¿Qué pasó? ¿Cómo voy a saberlo? Yo sé que mi hijita no pueda ni ver ni oír a su madre, y que estaba esperado por su llegada._ "

She looks at Castiel, tears spilling over her ruddy cheeks. " _¿Quién es usted? ¿Puede ayudarla?_ "

" _No_ ," Castiel murmurs, and whatever he's denying Benicia makes her sob. " _No puedo cambiarla, pero su hija es muy importante. Puede ayudarnos._ "

He watches as Castiel turns away from Benicia, who's crying softly, and focuses on Paz. The little girl is still playing with her rocks, now arranged in some odd formation that almost looks like steps. She delicately places a lighter-colored rock atop the steps and sits back, unseeing but satisfied. Smiling, Paz reaches up and tugs lightly on Dean's hand. He pats her on the back with his free hand, and it's enough for her.

" _Benicia_ ," Castiel says quietly, eyes still on Paz. " _¿Sabe el nombre del ángel que la visitó?_ "

Sniffing inelegantly, she nods and says through her hand, " _Paz me dijo que el ángel se llamaba Raguel_."

Hello. Dean lifts his head from where he's helping Paz dismantle her steps, and Sam starts in surprise at the name. Paz bats at Dean's knee and points to the rocks with unerring accuracy, which are now arranged in five rows of five. She beams up at him, showing him her missing front tooth.

Benicia frowns and stands, walking over to them. Crap, if she thinks he's somehow messing with her daughter -- He's seen those Mexican chicks on Jerry Springer, and they're hard-core. Could use some of those girls in the Hunting world.

" _Pachita_ ," Benicia murmurs to her daughter, who's rearranging her stones in random positions, head bowed in concentration. " _Pachita, puedes oírme?_ "

Paz doesn't hear her. Dean rolls his eyes. "Lady, your kid's deaf."

Except the little head snaps up from her rocks to look at Dean. Benicia stumbles backwards, her hands flying to cover her mouth in shock.

Sam jumps up with a curse. "Fuck! Dean, she can hear you!"

"Um, no she can't," he says. "You know why? She's _deaf_."

But now Castiel's joining them, clasping Dean's shoulder gently. Good thing, too. That angel strength is a bitch. "Dean, go to the other side of the house and call her name."

"You go call her name," he snaps. "I'm not your dog."

"Dean," Sam hisses, kicking some dirt at him. "Get your ass up! What if she can hear you? She's been hearing nothing but silence for weeks and you could be the first thing since then!"

Oh. Well. He looks back down at Paz, meets the eyes that by all rights should be there, and exhales slowly. They were probably brown, her eyes, like her mother's, wide and innocent, still learning everything in the world. She probably went to that shitty pond every day, picking up and studying bugs, watching water striders as they walked across the surface. Probably stared at the sun just to have that colorful after-image fuck with her sight for fun.

Now, she's going to forget what her mother looks like, what her house looks like. She won't remember colors, or animals, or the faces of her neighbors. Even the stones she plays with will be foreign.

He rubs his hand over his face. Fuck.

Silently, he stands up and picks his way across all the shit in the yard, walking back to the dirt road they'd taken to get to the house. If this works… He doesn't even know.

Cupping his hands over his mouth, he shouts, "Paz!"

Her head snaps up and swivels around, turning to look in his direction. He drops his hands. _Fuck._

" _Es un milagro!_ " Benicia gasps. Dean walks back over to them cautiously, Paz watching his every step. _Puede verte!_ "

"Lady, I have no idea what you're saying," he says, holding up his hands as a shield, hoping that Sam brought some kind of weapon in case she decides to maul him.

"Cas --"

Paz stands suddenly, kicking over her rocks, and extends a little brown hand for him to take. " _¡Ven aquí!_ "

Benicia sucks in a gasp and Castiel fixes him with a sharp look. "Dean."

He drops to his knees in front of her, wood and dirt and stone crunching beneath his weight. She smiles at him and lifts two fingers to his forehead, like Castiel does before he's going to whammy him. Only she's a blind and deaf little girl with a missing tooth and really good aim. Her tiny fingers brush over his brow, and he bows his head slightly so she can touch him more easily.

It's… she's blessing him. She's actually blessing him.

He stares straight at Castiel as she bends down slightly, her mouth going to his ear. Her hair smells like the earth, like the sun.

" _La Lista está sana y salva,_ " she whispers conspiratorially, telling him the biggest secret a little girl can keep. Her words are slurred from disuse, but it's not like he can understand them anyway. " _No te preocupes. Pero, no queda mucho tiempo. Solamente tiene cuatro días…_ He will not wait for you. _Te Nombro, Dean Winchester._ "

Paz leans back, beaming down at him, and he thinks for one fuzzy moment that she has the prettiest non-eyes he's ever seen. She leans back down again, kisses him right on the cheek, and then turns away, going back to her rocks.

Benicia stares at him, tears leaking from her eyes without any signs of slowing or stopping. " _¿Quién eres?_ "

He shakes his head, heart pounding. "I don't know."

Sam's pale, shaken. "Dude, what the hell?"

"I don't _know_ , Sam." Something big just happened and he wishes he knew what it was.

" _¿Quién eres?!_ " Benicia shouts, hysterical, accusingly pointing at Dean like _he_ knows what's going on.

Castiel comes out of nowhere, presses two fingers to her forehead, and catches her easily when her knees buckle under her. He lifts her easily, perfunctorily, and gently places her on the crumbling concrete step that leads into the house.

"Cas --" Sam starts, silenced when Castiel holds up a hand.

"She will not remember this." Castiel gives Paz a long, searching look before turning to Dean. "We should go. I must speak with Gabriel, and there is the matter of the Leviathan."

An asshole and a giant fish-monster. He'd rather stay in Mexico and play with rocks.

"I think we should start calling all the hunters we can," Sam chimes in, running a hand through his too-long hair. It really needs a cut. "Maybe build up some firepower before the week's up."

Paz peers up at Dean through her eyelashes and smiles, waggling her fingers in farewell. " _¡Hasta luego!_ "

Castiel's hand descends upon his shoulder and he's swept away --

\-- to where Gabriel is waiting on Bobby's couch, feet propped up on the table and Sam's laptop resting on his knees, sipping on a mug of something that smells chocolaty. He glances over the monitor at them and lifts his cup in greeting. "You kids off on another hare-brained adventure?"

"What are you doing?" Sam demands, stalking forward and reaching for his computer. "That's mine!"

Gabriel hums into his mug. "You've got some interesting bookmarks, Sammy. I particularly like the one called 'Barely Legal Lesbian Orgy'. Classy. The cinematography wasn't quite what I was hoping, but the acting was _superb_."

Sam lets loose a strangled shriek and lunges. Gabriel bamfs away and reappears next to Dean, laptop still in his hands.

"Unless that bookmark's yours, champ," Gabriel says, handing off the laptop to Dean.

Dean leers in Sam's direction, shifting the laptop in his arms. "Nah, he never lets me use the computer. Now I know why."

"Shut up, Dean!"

Castiel steps around Dean to face Gabriel, who's finishing off the dregs of what must be hot chocolate. "Gabriel, did you know about the prophet?"

Gabriel gives Castiel an odd look, one Dean can't categorize but is close to genuine confusion, and tosses his mug over his shoulder. It disappears before it can shatter on the floor. "Of course I know about the prophet. Little guy who's drunk all the time. Everyone knows about him."

The gaze Castiel fixes on Gabriel makes Dean's skin break out in gooseflesh, the almost-sky blue darkening into an impending storm, narrowing in worry and trying to convey that emotion. It isn't fair that Castiel's been feeling emotion for less than a month or so and yet can still get across more with his eyes than Dean can with his whole body. Gabriel studies his brother, head tilting up consideringly.

"But you're not talking about Chuck."

Castiel shakes his head. "No. I speak of the child Paz Soto in Chilcuautla, Mexico."

"Was Chuck given a pink slip?"

Dean glances at Gabriel. "Shouldn't you dicks be in the know when it comes to your seeing-eye dogs? Chuck hasn't had a vision since Jesus died."

Sam nods. "Why _are_ you here, anyway? Don't you have things to do before the big day?"

Gabriel sniffs prissily in Sam's direction. "FYI, I'm down here because one of the Horsemen was spotted in Minnesota. Famine."

"And?" There's a Horseman running loose in the next state over, and Gabriel's checking out Sam's porn? Why does everyone else seem to be okay with this? "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, _taking care of that_?"

"We _were_ ," Gabriel says loudly, and the windows tremble under the force of him. Dean cocks his eyebrow, unimpressed, because, hello, an angel pulled him out of Hell and hasn't stopped following him around since. "But we lost him."

Sam stares. "You lost him. You lost a Horseman."

Gabriel shifts. "Yes."

"Can… can you do that?" Sam looks at Dean for help, but he's got nothing. "I mean, it's a Horseman of the Apocalypse! Aren't you guys a step above that? Can't you go and smite it?"

"Famine must have departed for Hell once he detected you," Castiel muses aloud, joining the conversation. "But I would speak with you about the prophet."

"Chuck."

"No, the other prophet."

Pursing his lips, Dean catches Sam's gaze and jerks his head, motioning for Sam to follow him out of the living room. His subtle gesture wins him a confused look. Rolling his eyes, he jerks his head harder, until Sam gets the message. Christ on a fucking pogo stick, but his brother can be thick.

He slips out of the living room first, quietly making his way into the hall and then up the stairs, taking care that they don't creak as much as they usually do. No need to alert the angels of anything, especially when they're talking work. Being able to be silent in a loud environment was one of the first skills Dad'd taught him when he started out, teaching him how to step on the balls of his feet when taking a step, because it's quieter than stepping on the sole, gives more control over movements. It's a little difficult, though, since he's still carrying Sam's stupid computer.

There's a rustle of clothing behind him that tells him Sam is following, taking the stairs just as silently. He slowly moves into Sam's room, right at the top of the stairs, and waits for Sam come in after him.

Dean motions for him to shut the door, and Sam complies without a sound, turning back to Dean with wild guilt in his eyes.

"Dean, it's not -- I don't have a thing for teenagers. It's just a --"

"Dude, whatever. I don't care. I've seen that video, like, eighty times. The acting _was_ superb."

Sam stares.

Dean takes a seat on the unmade bed and opens the laptop, gesturing for Sam to take the spot next to him.

As Sam settles by his side, Dean opens up a Word document, and immediately gets to typing.

 _talk in this i dont want anyone listening  
i dont think were dealing with lucifer at all_

It wins him an incredulous look, but Sam snatches the computer back from him.

 _How do you figure?_

 _we never saw lucifer leave st marys and he hasnt actually done anything_

 _He hasn't done anything? What about the Leviathan and the Horsemen?_

 _the ones noone has been able to actually see?/ sam he hasnt shown his face yet because its not him_

 _Your typing sucks._

 _fuck you_

 _If it's not Lucifer, then who?_

He takes the computer from Sam, but it's a moment before he types what he wants to say. It's a pretty steep accusation. But then again, he couldn't give a shit about those fucks -- barring Castiel, of course -- so he just punches it out.

 _i think its someone on the inside_

Sam sucks in a breath through his nose and gingerly accepts the laptop.

 _Why would you think that? Sure, Lucifer hasn't shown his face but that doesn't mean someone in Heaven is behind it. What would be the point?_

 _i dont know maybe its an excuse to take out hell  
they blame it on the bad guy and noone bats an eye_

 _You really need to learn how to write like a normal human being._

 _i hate you so much your such a little biitch_

 _You love me. But I don't get it. They could have started a war without killing him._

 _i dont know sammy  
paz said something to me i dont understannd but i feel like i should  
she spoke english to me she said HE wont wait for me   
why didnt she just say lucifer its not like she could do any harm in saying hs name  
but i think she was afraid to tell me who it was_

 _You don't think it's Gabriel, do you?_

 _i dont now_

 _Know, even._

 _shut up bitch_

 _Jerk.  
What about Cas?_

 _i havent told him yet hes alreadty lost so much family you know  
he might not be able to handle another blow  
i need to talk to that sariel i got a feeling she can find ragel  
ragel is the guy we need to find_

 _And what am I supposed to do? Sit around with my thumb up my ass?_

 _have gaberiel take you next time he goes after a horseman  
see what happens or what doesnt happen_

 _What if something does happen? What if it really is a Horseman?_

 _woops my bad_

 _You suck so hard._

 _:-)_

 _When will you leave? Isn't Sariel in NYC? Are you going to drive all that way just to talk to her?_

 _fuck i forgot_

 _Have Cas take you._

 _going to have to_

 _How is that going, by the way?_

And they're done. Dean snatches the laptop away from Sam's stupid fingers and ignores the waves of smugness rolling off him. "Yeah, so, good talk."

Standing, Sam stretches and something pops loudly. Dean winces, because, gross. It's okay, even expected, when demons do it, but the sound of bones cracking in an otherwise silent room makes his skin crawl. Catching the look of disgust that must be on his face, Sam cracks his knuckles for good measure.

"Douche."

The obnoxious smirk fades from Sam's face. "Dean, what makes you so sure?"

He can't explain it; there aren't words to describe the uneasy doubt that nags at him every time Gabriel shows up, saying he wasn't needed, or how Heaven's trained soldiers somehow lost track of a Horseman that didn't do that much damage in the first place, or how there were sightings of a possible Leviathan off the Boston coast but no one's actually seen the fucking thing. Everything's too conveniently vague, too quiet, and it has to be building up to something.

"I just have this bad feeling about it. Something's wrong."

Unconvinced, but willing to take it on faith, because Sammy's such a good little brother, Sam nods and starts for the door. "I'll go down first, talk to Gabriel."

"Sam."

Sam stops and cranes his head to look over his shoulder.

"Do you know what _lista_ means in Spanish?"

"'List'? I don't know." He glances at the laptop in Dean's hands. "Look it up. If you can even spell it."

Such a comedian. "Oh, before I forget, there's something I've been meaning to tell you."

Sam nods. "Yeah?"

"Fuck you."

Snickering, Sam closes the door behind himself without so much as an audible click, another thing from a hunter's utility belt, and Dean stares at the door for a long time before he opens up Google.

A search for 'spanish translation' brings him to a word box on SpanishDict.com, where he attempts to put in what Paz had murmured in his ear. It takes him a good ten minutes to reconstruct the sentence with the help of SpanishDict.com's word suggestions.

 _La lista está sana y salva_.

The list is safe and sound.

 

Castiel is waiting for him on the other side of the door like the giant creep he is when Dean opens it. They stand apart, separated by the invisible threshold, awkwardly staring at each other until Dean takes the requisite step out of the room. Sam's laptop tucked under his arm, he gives Castiel his brightest, fakest smile.

"Hey there. You come here often?"

Castiel blinks. "Yes."

He could spend an eternity among humans and never get them. Dean shakes his head. It's a lost cause. "Forget it. What's up?"

That's apparently recognizable enough. "Robert's contact in Boston called again. The Leviathan has been spotted off the coast; Gabriel took both Robert and Sam to subdue it."

If it's even there. Nice of Sam to let him know that he was already going. "That's just fucking wonderful."

It wins him a head tilt. "You're angry."

And taking it out on Castiel, which has been his default setting since that night in the barn. He'd been getting better about it, though, lately. "No, just frustrated. C'mon. I'm hungry, and while I make the biggest sandwich known to mankind you can tell me about the list."

He's half-way down the stairs when he hears, "What list?"

"You tell me, Cas."

He knows that when he’d told Sam about his hunch and Sam had asked about Castiel, that Sam wasn’t just asking whether or not Castiel was in on Dean's theory but in on Heaven's scam. Dumb question. Maybe a couple of months ago, he would have suspected Castiel of being Heaven's butt-boy befriending Dean in order to get close to him, keeping Dean occupied with other things while Heaven wreaked havoc. But there's no way Castiel's with those douchebags. He's a shitty liar and his impenetrable poker face isn't exactly a poker face at all, but it's more than that. Castiel had been willing to go to the mat for Dean when Sam was about to gank Lilith. Had been willing to die for him. Has disobeyed his superiors time and time again for him.

Not to mention the whole BFF with Jesus thing. Dean can't see Castiel sitting back and allowing his only friend to be murdered on Heaven's say-so.

Castiel is on Dean's side for the long haul, Dean's sure. And he can't even pretend that he's unhappy about it.

Either way, he needs a sandwich. Too bad he'd eaten all the bacon yesterday, because a BLT without the L would hit the spot right about now.

When he enters the kitchen, Castiel is there, waiting for him.

"Dude, one of these days I'm gonna drop dead of a heart attack, and then where will you be?" He scours the counters for the bread, but it's not there. Bobby must've hidden it. Fuck.

"What list, Dean?" Castiel takes a seat at the table, tucking his legs under his seat and resting his hands in his lap like a good boy. Sitting at the table, staring up at Dean, he looks almost normal. Almost. In a momentary lapse in sanity, he wonders if his mother would have approved. His father certainly wouldn't have; John Winchester didn't like anyone. But Mary Winchester… he thinks she would have liked Castiel, fixed him a drink whenever he dropped by, would call him just to talk, and plan family dinners and surprise birthday parties, and probably take him shopping with her because he'd tell her if something made her look fat. She would have found his earnestness endearing, his devotion precious. She would have been happy because he made Dean happy.

Castiel tilts his head at him, like he knows what Dean's thinking, and Dean busies himself with his search for the fucking why-would-Bobby-hide-it-that's-such-a-dick-thing-to-do bread.

"In the microwave," Castiel says softly.

Dean pulls open the microwave door. Voila. Who the fuck puts bread in a microwave?

"Will you explain to me this list?"

"You tell me about it," Dean counters, breaking out some peanut butter. Bobby doesn't have any jelly, of course, but there's a years-old jar of strawberry jam in the back of the fridge that Dean wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. It's probably bred its own army by now. Works in his favor, since strawberry jam sucks.

Castiel squints in confusion and tries, "A list is a sequence of things?"

"Not _a_ list," Dean groans, slathering on as much peanut butter as the bread can take. " _The_ list. As in, only one. As in, very important. As in, I have no idea what it is."

"I don't know what it is, either," Castiel says thoughtfully. "Did the prophet speak of it?"

"Yeah. She said 'the list is safe and sound'."

"You understood her?"

"I looked it up online," he says, dragging the knife over the edge of the jar, ridding it of any excess peanut butter. "I was hoping you knew what it was, because if this is something else we need to be concerned about then we're pretty much fucked."

Leaning against the sink, Dean bites into his very peanut buttery sandwich, and wow, now he knows how dogs feel. He can barely open his mouth wide enough to chew through it. He watches as Castiel thinks it over, probably going through the fucking Dewey Decimal System in his brain, looking under "L" for list and coming up empty. The crease between Castiel's brows smoothes out, but not the way it would if he found what he'd been looking for.

"I don't know of any _particular_ list that would influence the war," Castiel says finally, apologetically. "There are many orders in Heaven, the most obvious being the angels and the prophets. She did not say anything else?"

Dean shrugs, forcing his mouthful of peanut butter and bread down his throat. Ugh. Now he needs milk. Or acid. "Just that it was safe and sound." He leaves out the part about the person who won't wait for Dean; no need to start slinging accusations about Castiel's fucked-in-the-head family before he knows for certain.

"Then I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Whatever," he mutters, glancing down at his sandwich. It's almost not worth it, and scraping off some of the peanut butter will make him look like a pussy. "So..."

"Last night you were going to kiss me."

Dean chokes on the bits of sandwich stuck to the inside of his throat. "We're talking about this now?!"

"Yes."

Fucking perfect. "Great, because it was such a good time."

Castiel chooses _now_ to hear the sarcasm, of course."Did you want to forget it?" He sounds like he could do it easily, just strike it from his memory as though it had never happened. "I will, if it would make you feel better."

"You -- _Me_ feel better? _You_ were the one who rolled over! I don't know about you, Cas, but down here that's a pretty clear rejection." Dean's been turned down plenty of times before, but never so abruptly, so coldly. The least Castiel could have done was stumble through the It's-Not-You-It's-Me speech.

The blue eyes look away, down onto the hands resting in Castiel's lap. "It was not rejection. You were asking me something that I was not prepared to answer."

Fuck it. He throws his sandwich in the sink. "Then you should have told me to shut the fuck up! I would have! But you don't -- you don't start that with someone and then fucking roll over without a reason!"

Castiel stares, lips parted and brows furrowed in what could be confusion or hurt, and Dean drags a hand through his hair. All this hair-pulling is going to make him prematurely bald. He can't deal with Castiel looking at him like that, like Dean's reaching into his chest and crushing his hand-me-down heart. so he turns his back and focuses on the peanut butter sandwich in the sink.

"So, what, if I walked over there right now and kissed you, you'd let me?"

"Yes."

The sandwich blurs before his eyes, and he blinks it away, turning slowly around, trying to get some fucking air into his lungs and failing. It's too stuffy in the kitchen; he needs to open a window, or wash the dishes, or do something with his hands. Anything to distract himself from the pounding of his heart, the dull hope that rises at the way Castiel is looking at him.

"Huh. Well." Okay. "I'll, uh, remember that."

"Do," Castiel agrees, amused, gaze hot and dark, and Dean swallows around the lump in his throat, because _damn_.

The zinger that's going to come out of his mouth is going to be one for the books, but his phone vibrates against his hip and cuts him off before he can even get the first syllable out. It's probably Andy, wanting to talk about giraffes or something.

It's a text from Sam. _Something definitely in harbor. Going to take it down. Call you soon._

Okay, then.

He looks up. Castiel is still staring at him, eyes dark, but the heat from before is gone. Now he's waiting for instructions, for an order, and Dean needs to break him of that if they're -- well, Castiel just needs to lose the habit.

"So," Dean says brightly. "Ever been to New York?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spanish Translations**
> 
> "Excuse us, sir."  
> "Hello, stranger! Welcome to our city! Are you American?"  
> "No. I am an angel of the Lord. We are looking for Benicia Soto. Do you know her?"  
> "And them?"  
> "They are my humans."  
> "Are you serious?"  
> "Yes. It is very important that we find her."  
> "Tell me, stranger. Why do you need to find Benicia?"  
> "We must speak with her daughter, Paz."  
> "You know Paz?"  
> "Yes."  
> "Then it's true? Little Paz speaks with angels?"  
> "Can you tell us where the Sotos live, please?"  
> "Go down the street here until you come to a small pond. Benicia's house is on the right. There are crosses everywhere."  
> "Thank you, Enzo Arenas. You have been a great help."  
> "Angels! The angels are here! Praise God!"
> 
> "Who are you?"
> 
> "My mother always told me that angels were watching over us. I never believed her... until it happened."  
> "Tell us what happened."  
> "It happened two months ago. I work as a seamstress and I left work early that day. When I got home, Paz and I ate dinner. I had saved enough to buy fish, better than what we normally ate. Then, we went to sleep.  
> The noise… It was the noise that woke me. I had never heard anything like it. It was painful, but Paz didn't care. The light, too. It was so brilliant that my eyes burned. I tried to cover her eyes, but she got away from me. I couldn't see or hear anything, but Paz… Paz was talking to the light. Her ears were bleeding. Her eyes were bleeding. But she was listening. And suddenly… it had ended. Paz couldn't hear or see me. Her eyes had disappeared. She was silent. But, she was so happy, and told me an angel had spoken to her. It had given her another kind of sight. She could see the future.  
> I told the police, but they thought I was crazy. I told my neighbors… some believed me. We are very religious here. We go to church every day. It's not hard to believe me. They call her a prophet; they say that she speaks with the angels. Something happened that night. What happened? How am I going to know? I know that my daughter can't see or hear her mother, and I know that she has been waiting for you to come.  
> Who are you? Can you help her?"  
> "No. I cannot change this, but your daughter is very important. She can help us."
> 
> "Benicia, do you know the name of the angel that visited?"  
> "Paz told me he was called Raguel."
> 
> "My little Paz. Paz, baby, can you hear me?"
> 
> "It's a miracle! She can hear you!"
> 
> "Come here! The List is safe and sound. Don't worry. But time is running out. You only have four days. No te esperará. I Name you, Dean Winchester."
> 
> "Who are you? Who are you?!"


	10. Part Nine

The last time he was in New York, they'd been in pursuit of a vampire. Dad had been driving, Dean acting as co-pilot in the passenger seat and dousing some knives in dead man's blood. It had soaked through his jeans and clung to his skin, and Dad had warned him not to spill any on the seat; they were going to need every drop to take down the sonuvabitch they were after.

His name was something faggy and French, probably Corbeau or Lamont, and he was over 1500 years old. That Corbeau (or Lamont) was a millennia-old vampire wasn't the reason they'd been after him; old Corbeau (or Lamont) had a sick appetite when it came to pretty young men. And what better place to find beautiful men for the picking than in New York City? Corbeau (or Lamont) had left a strewn of fucked out, dried out bodies in his wake, enough to stir panic on the streets. But it wasn't until Dan Forest, a hunter and contact of Dad's, had been fucked and sucked dry that they sprang into action.

They'd split up to search, and Dean'd finally cornered Corbeau (or Lamont) in a club near Broadway, pulled him off of some twink's neck with every intention of staking the bastard. Until Corbeau (or Lamont) had glamoured the fuck out of him. And, embarrassingly enough, it was Dad that saved the day, shoving a foot-long knife through the guy's neck and twisting it around until Corbeau (or Lamont) had no head and Dean was left to haul up his pants, red-faced and unable to look Dad in the eye for weeks

The more he thinks about it, the more he's sure the vampire's name was Thierry.

Now, he's standing in front of one of NYU's sixty-thousand buildings in broad daylight, Castiel a couple paces ahead of him, and is pretty convinced that this time is going to be a fuck of a lot worse than Thierry.

"This is the 'human college'?" Dean squints up the façade of the building, which reads 'Palladium Hall' above revolving doors. The whole thing is fucking ugly; it looks like a giant Connect-4 game. A group of girls walk out and throw him flirtatious grins; all of them are wearing Daisy Dukes and ugly sheepskin boots.

"Gabriel said this morning that she resided in the platinum dormitory."

"Dude, this is brick."

Castiel looks over his shoulder at him. "Palladium is an element in the platinum group, Dean."

Obviously. "So, what do we do? Walk in and ask for Sariel? She's gotta have an actual name, like Anna did."

"She goes by Sara Campbell here," Castiel says stiffly, shoulders slowly rising from an almost-relaxed state to DEFCON-5. Great.

"What's got your panties in a twist?" he asks, annoyed, but Castiel doesn't even make mention about not knowing what panties are.

Ignoring the looks of some more students walking past them, Castiel storms up to Dean and practically _punches_ him in the face with his two-fingered whammy, and --

He's not on the street anymore.

"Can you warn a guy before you do that?!"

Taking a step back, Dean looks around. This isn't the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks 'college dorm'; he's never been one to appreciate art, but there's something almost beautiful in the way the walls of the hallway are lined with photography. Big frames, small frames, no frames, lambasted into the walls themselves, it's completely everywhere. Black, white, color, just this whorl of silver doors and images.

It's pretty impressive. He turns in a complete circle, studying it, while Castiel stands stock still and does his super angel mind-search thing, totally unmoved by their surroundings.

"Cas --"

"Be quiet."

Dean sniffs and rotates his shoulder. "Fuck you, too."

"I'm attempting to find her," Castiel says, voice low, eyes closed and brows furrowed in concentration. "She is in this building, on this floor, but I cannot pinpoint where."

Which means they're going to have to knock on some random person's door and hope whoever answers it knows where Sara lives. With their luck, they're going to be knocking on every door until they get to hers.

Dean sighs and turns his head, watching as some kid walks out of a room, jiggling the door handle to make sure it locked. Just looking at the kid makes Dean feel fucking old; he remembers when he used to be that bright-eyed and youthful, hair deliberately tousled and dressed like he'd thrown on any old thing but in reality had taken an hour to decide on the shirts. Except Dean's jeans weren't bought ripped and frayed.

The kid's good-looking enough that he probably has no trouble finding a date for a Friday night, and he probably plays some kind of team sport. But he has an air about him, like Sam does, that screams "NOT JUST A PIECE OF ASS, BUT ALSO SMART".

And he's giving Dean and Castiel the stink-eye.

"Shit," Dean curses under his breath before pasting on a friendly smile as the kid starts walking in their direction. "Cas, you wanna wrap it up?"

"Can I help you guys?" The kid inquires, somehow shoving a world of suspicion into the question. He must be an RA. Sworn to protect the college residents in return for free room and board. Perfect. It's like dealing with a mall cop, only not as funny.

Dean discreetly elbows Castiel in the back. "Yeah, hopefully." He needs to think of a good lie, quick. "Uh, we're looking for Sara Campbell. She had the, uh, front desk buzz us up, but forgot to tell us what room she's in."

The kid cocks an eyebrow. It probably makes all the girls swoon, but it leaves a vaguely bad taste in Dean's mouth.

"You know Sara? How?"

"Uh." Think, think. Fuck. "He's --" Dean jerks a thumb in Castiel's direction. "-- her brother. And we're, uh, here to have dinner with her to celebrate her birthday."

"Her birthday's in January," the kid says. What RA knows that?

"Her birthday, which we missed this past January," Dean recovers smoothly, elbowing Castiel one more time. "Isn't that right, Cas?"

Dislodging Dean's elbow from his spine, Castiel turns neatly on his heel and fixes the kid with a cool stare. If he were the kid, Dean would have no trouble believing that Castiel was Sara Campbell's over-protective brother. Her smoking hot, over-protective brother.

The kid leans back with a disbelieving laugh. "Wow, okay. Yeah, you're definitely Sara's brother. Can't mistake those eyes. Well, it's great to meet you. I'm Alex Wood, Sara's RA."

He thrusts out a hand for Castiel to shake, the poster child for the all-American boy, and Castiel gives it a look that suggests he might either shake it or bite it off. Luckily, he goes for the former, and the kid smiles weakly as his hand is crushed in Castiel's firm grip.

"Cas," Dean hisses, then turns a smile onto the kid. "So, Al, if you don't mind, could you point us in the direction of her room?"

Alex snatches his hand from Castiel and shakes it out. "Good grip."

"Thank you," Castiel says flatly. "If you would show us to Sara's dormitory?"

"Of course. It's actually back down this way," Alex says, pointing in the other direction. He beckons them to follow him. "I pop down to see her a lot; she and her roommates are pretty cool. Sara helped me with my laundry our first semester here. So, I'm standing there in front of the washing machine like an idiot, because my mom always did my laundry and I had no idea how to separate my clothes or what settings to put them on, and Sara comes breezing in and shows me like she invented it. She helps me prep for my history class, too; God, it's like she was _there_ for some of that stuff!"

Alex glances back at Castiel, then keeps his eyes forward. Oh, hell, the kid's _buttering_ Castiel up, trying to win over big brother's approval so he can pursue Sara with permission. What is this, the 1950's?

"Of course," Alex goes on nervously, "I help her with lots of things, too. Her health-science homework -- I'm in Sports Law."

He seems like a nice enough kid, but Dean's going to die of boredom before they even reach her dorm, crushed to death under the mundaneness of whatever Alex is going on about. It's probably all the shit a worried parent, or over-protective brother, would want to hear, and Dean can appreciate that there are stand-up kids like Alex still around, but he doesn't give a shit about Sara Campbell's little stalker. Dean would put money on Alex having a shrine to Sara in his closet.

They stop in front of a door marked 329, and Alex turns to them proudly, almost as if he's expecting a tip for his help. "Here it is."

Now Dean just kind of feels bad for the kid. "Thanks."

Except Alex doesn't move, just waits expectantly, grinning at Castiel. "Could you guys do me a favor and tell Sara that I said hi?"

For the love of fuck.

Luckily, some stocky kid comes waddling down the hall, pudgy cheeks red with exertion, his Steelers jersey stained with things Dean can't even identify. "Al, you gotta help Pete, man. Mac dared him to eat a ghost chili and he did and, dude, I think he's dead, man."

Alex heaves a long-suffering sigh and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like "I should be so lucky" before smiling apologetically at Castiel. "Sorry, but I have to go take care of this. Have fun with Sara!"

Dean watches as Alex ambles after the pudgy kid. As they disappear around the corner Dean turns to Castiel. He's got his game face on.

"You wanna do the honors?"

Castiel blinks. "The honors…?"

"Never mind. I keep forgetting you're a robot." Dean raps his knuckles against the door a couple of times, loud bangs that will be heard no matter where Sara is in the dorm. Satisfied, he takes a step back and waits.

From beyond the door, someone shouts, "Mora's back!" It's followed by loud cheering and the thump of footsteps, growing louder and louder until the door handle bends down. The door swings open and a girl with one of those short, indie haircuts pokes her head out, the light from the hallway catching the vinyl red of her headband. She's a thin, reedy thing. Fuck, she's probably a vegan. All college kids are fucking vegans. Bunch of faerie-loving hippies.

She steps onto the threshold with bare feet, toes painted bright ugly yellow, and huffs. "You're not here to ask me to join the Mormon Tabernacle Choir NYU Chapter again, right? It's nothing personal, but it's just that the only thing I hate more than Mormons is singing."

Her shirt says "Bug". It's probably supposed to be ironic.

This better not be Sariel.

"Hello, Sariel."

Fuck.

A look of indignant fear crosses her face, a quick flash that's there and gone, and Dean knows that they're not supposed to be here and using that name. She slips into the hall and slams the door behind her, back and palms pressed against it, barring them from entering and messing up whatever life she's made for herself.

"You can't be here," Sara hisses, her 'must run in the family' eyes burning with rage. She fixes Castiel with a glare that could flay a man alive. "And you can't call me that. That's not my name anymore."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Man, if I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say that this week."

"It will always be your name," Castiel interrupts stonily, the words absolute, burning themselves into the walls around them as fact, immortal. "I would not presume, Sariel --"

"No, seriously. You need to go, or I'm going to call campus security and make a huge scene."

"Do it. You won't."

"Buddy, do you even know who you're talking to? I'm an _angel_ \--"

"I thought you don't go by that name anymore. Either you do or you don't."

"Watch your mouth before I punch it through the back of your head."

"You don't scare me."

"I'm sure we could fix that really quick."

"Jesus Christ is dead."

The words hit like a bomb. The blood drains from Sara's face, her pale skin becoming practically see-through, eyes wide with shock and disbelief. She looks less like a pretentious college student and more… normal. Well, the only kind of normal that Dean can recognize: devastated and on the edge of a knife.

Dean smirks. "Ready to listen now, _Sariel_? Or, should we still go fuck ourselves?"

Her gaze drops to the floor, then lifts, and she opens her mouth to say something but the door swings open before the first syllable even gets out.

"We're starving! You'd better not be out here eating all the -- Oh. _Oh_."

The tableau they make must be something spectacular: a skinny chick with Jaime Lee Curtis hair, an android in a trench coat, and a devilishly handsome guy wearing ripped jeans and a Led Zeppelin shirt. Standing in the doorway are two girls, both in pajamas, one with her hair wrapped up into a towel-mountain on the top of her head. They blink owlishly at Dean, and he's starting to regret his ability to pickup and charm the pants off of girls any shape, size, and age.

"Sara," the girl with the towel-mountain says slowly, eying both Dean and Castiel like they're the last two chocolate bars on the planet. "Who're your friends?"

Head lowered, Sara closes her eyes, breathes deeply through her nose, and visibly steels herself. If he squinted, he could probably see the metal plates shifting over each other, forging impenetrable armor. Her head snaps up and she beams at both Dean and Castiel, and that is not a happy smile. That's a smile that Alistair would be jealous of.

"Becks? Rose? This is --" She glances at Castiel, squinting for a second. " -- Cas, my brother. And this is --"

Dean frowns at the look she gives him, as if she's trying to place just what he is. It's not like she could introduce him as 'Dean Winchester, former Righteous Man and half-responsible for releasing the Devil.' There really isn't anything she could say about him that he wouldn't agree with.

"And this is Dean, his _life-partner_."

Except that.

 

They live in a suite, which is nicer than pretty much all of the places Dean's ever stayed in his life. Three bedrooms with all the furnishings, a full bathroom, a full kitchen, and a living room. Everything's state of the art, all shiny black and silver appliances that probably do your algebra homework as well as they make perfect meals. The living room area is his favorite, with its soft-looking carpet and its newish couch, the lined art in a frame on the wall, the flat-screen television paused on some movie with a picture so clear that it might as well be happening in real time. He totally should have gone to college, and he really can't blame Sam for doing it.

Dean whistles low. "Nice place."

"We really lucked out on the lottery draw," Rose says brightly, holding out a hand. "Can I take your jacket, Dean?"

Creepy. "Uh, yeah, thanks."

He relinquishes his jacket to her, hoping that he doesn't look as creeped out as he feels when she giggles into the leather and disappears somewhere with it. If it comes back stained, he's shooting her.

Becks, with the towel-mountain, just stares unabashedly. He shifts awkwardly and looks to Castiel for help, but he's too busy trying to figure out the exact color of white the living room walls are painted to actually give Dean a hand. Worst fake life-partner ever.

"Becks," Sara barks, bumping Becks with her shoulder. "You look like you're gonna have him put the lotion in the basket."

Yeah, no shit.

"Sorry," Becks simpers, smiling so widely that her face might rip right in half any second. "It's just that -- Okay, have you ever heard of this book series, _Supernatural_?"

This is not his life. This can't be his life.

"Because you look just like how I always pictured one of the main characters," she goes on. "His name is Dean, too! And, god, you're just how I pictured him. He and his brother fight all sorts of monsters and stuff."

No. His _brother_ fights monsters; Dean babysits demon spawn and visits college dorms.

He's obviously back in Hell. They must have done some revamping, because there are a lot more annoying teenage girls than he remembers being there.

"Sorry," he says awkwardly. "Never heard of those books. Not my kind of thing."

Sara pads lightly to the fridge and opens it, knocking the door into Dean's hip, because she's a bitch. He would be too if he had that hair.

She glares over the top of the door at him, like she can hear everything he's thinking. Well, _angel_ , so she probably can. Good. "Can I get you anything to drink? Cas is always telling me how weak you get when you're dehydrated."

 _Bitch._ "Got any beer? Oh, wait, forgot. You can't have any, because you're not of age yet. Sorry. I'll take some water."

Rose returns from wherever she stashed his coat, her face flushed. He so doesn't want to know. If she looked like Heidi Klum, then he'd want to know all about it, but until she shoots up another foot and grows a different head… no.

"Sorry, got tied up!" Gross. "Sara, I can't believe you didn't tell us about your brother!"

Sara shuts the refrigerator door with enough force to rattle the dishes in the strainer next to the sink. She cracks open a bottle of water and shrugs. "I have a big family. It's almost like I've never met him."

Castiel stands in front of the painting in the living room, studying the shit out of it. He doesn't even glance their way when she says that, which means he's definitely not paying attention. Or he doesn't care, still in that 'follow, fight and fall' mentality.

Becks gasps. "Sara, you're the worst sister on Earth."

"Not just on Earth," Dean mutters.

"You know," Sara says sweetly, like serial killers are sweet, " _ecstatic_ as I am you decided to pay me a surprise visit, we were getting ready to have a movie night. Just us girls."

Rose smacks Sara on the arm, affronted. "Sara! Your brother and his life-partner came all the way here to see you and you're making them leave? They can stay! They can take Michelle's room."

Becks snorts. "And maybe have sex in her bed, if we're lucky." She leans toward Dean and whispers conspiratorially, "Michelle's über religious and is totally against gay marriage. Two guys having sex in her bed is, like, poetic justice at its best."

"That would almost be worth it," Sara agrees musingly, sipping at her water. She glances to where Castiel has abandoned the painting and is now standing on the invisible line that divides the kitchen and the living room. She sighs. "You can stay if you absolutely have to. But Mora's coming back with pizza and we're watching rom-coms until we either fall asleep or kill ourselves, so…"

This might be the most surreal conversation that Dean's ever had, and that's including the one he had with Sam after the thing with the succubus mayor and the Slim Jims. Somehow, stuck in all the college minutiae, the impending war between Heaven and Hell, and the possibility of Heaven being totally corrupt, doesn't seem so immediate. They're far away, unable to penetrate the walls of Palladium Hall, stuck in the outside world to wait until Dean and Castiel are done here and venture back into reality.

A few hours watching shitty chick flicks won't kill him.

He catches Castiel's stare and smiles, jerking his head toward the girls. "Yeah, we can stick around."

"Great," Sara grumbles, pushing away from the fridge and heading into the living room. "Well, go make yourselves comfortable. We were in the middle of _While You Were Sleeping_."

Castiel follows her. "I was hoping to speak with you about --"

" _Later_." She plops down onto the couch, reaching underneath herself for the remote. "Take a seat and learn just why Sandra Bullock is going to rule the world someday."

Becks scrambles to grab a seat on the floor at Sara's feet, and she flails an arm at Dean. "Dean! Come sit next to your partner and watch the movie! Oh, and can you bring me a bottle of water, too?"

Sighing, Dean grabs her a bottle out of the fridge and allows Rose to lead him to the couch and force him to squeeze in between the arm of the couch and Castiel, who shifts slightly to accommodate him but not by much. They're pressed together, Dean's arm almost forced down against Castiel's back, and Sara glares at them for all the movement they're producing. He's going to punch her by the end of the night, he just knows it.

"Cas, take off your coat and stay a while!" Rose trills, sitting against the couch and leaning against Dean's leg.

Castiel glances at Dean, then leans forward and shimmies out of the trench coat, leaving the fabric bunched behind him. Dean takes a moment to drink in the smooth shoulders beneath the dress shirt, the graceful neck bared to the world. God, this is getting ridiculous.

 _"Listen, Lucy, when I told my mother I was getting married to my wife, her intestines exploded. You tell them the truth now, you may as well shoot grandma,"_ the guy on screen says, and Dean barely stops himself from saying that it needs to be a shot to the head, or else grandma will be up and walking again real soon.

"Have you seen this movie, Cas? It's one of my favorites," Becks says, craning her neck so she can look up.

Castiel watches the movie with extreme concentration. Dean's seen crazy people stare at walls with less focus. "No, I have not."

"Well, it's about this girl who's in love with this guy, but he doesn't know it. And one day, she saves him from being hit by a train, but he winds up in a coma, and everyone thinks she's his fiancée. But she ends up falling for his brother," Rose says, and Sara yawns, leaning until she can rest her chin in her hand.

Dean snorts. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. That's like bad daytime soap shit."

"Watch a lot of daytime soaps, Dean?" Sara inquires sweetly. Her eyes are fixed on the screen, but she's smirking.

"It does seem very convoluted," Castiel says to Rose, tearing his eyes away from the television and shifting so that he's leaning against Dean, forcing Dean's arm further down, caught between Castiel's back and the couch, until his fingers crest Castiel's hip. When Dean presses his fingers down and squeezes lightly, Castiel pauses and looks at him, eyes wide.

Dean can't help but grin, relaxed as hell on this couch, Rose warm against his leg and Becks yammering about why the movie works on a fundamental level and she knows these things, Cas, because she's a film studies major, you know. Sara pulls out her cell phone from god knows where, checking the time and muttering about Mora and their long-awaited pizza.

"Hey, relax for a while," he murmurs to Castiel, bringing his mouth close to his ear, tightening his hold on Castiel's side. "We've got time."

Castiel's head turns, their faces so close that if Dean breathed deeply they'd be kissing. He tries not to breathe very deeply. "I would like to talk to my sister."

"If you don't chill out, they're going to know something's up."

"Dean --"

He tilts his head just so, enough that it touches the side of Castiel's. When they stop the war from happening, the rewards will probably be mind-blowing. Fuck them. He'd take an hour or two of this. "We have a little over three days. Just… relax for a little bit. We'll talk to her."

A soft gasp reminds him that they have an audience and he looks down to where Becks and Rose are watching them, their eyes wide and glassy, almost dewey. Becks has her hands clasped over her heart, and she sighs.

"God, you two are just adorable," she simpers.

"I wish I had someone like that," Rose adds, fanning her flushed cheeks. Maybe Castiel has the right idea in getting what they need to know and getting out as soon as they can, because this is just ridiculous.

"How did you meet?" Becks asks. Sara tilts her head enough that she can still watch the movie and watch them.

Castiel doesn't take the hint when Dean squeezes him in warning. "I gripped him tight and --"

" -- saved me from oncoming traffic," Dean slips in smoothly, nodding at Castiel. "Yanked me right out. Would've been absolute hell if he hadn't."

Sara turns completely to look at him, her expression unreadable, but from where he's sitting it doesn't look good. He meets her gaze head-on. If this is the only way he's going to get some fucking answers about this, then he's doing it.

Her mouth opens, probably to say something either bitchy or revealing, but the door opens.

"I come bearing pizza!" A dark-skinned girl is keeping the door open with her foot, balancing two boxes of pizza against her shoulder. Her smile freezes when she catches sight of Dean and Castiel on the couch, and for a second it looks like her eyes -- Her eyes definitely flash black. Black. Demon black.

Dean looks at Sara, but she's wearing a face that says she will kill him if he even says one word. Still glaring at him, she rises and moves to help the girl with the boxes.

Becks smacks Dean's knee as she stands. "That's Mora. You're gonna love her."

He somehow doubts it.

As Becks and Rose go to help Mora unload, Dean turns to Castiel and hisses, "She's a demon!"

"I can't say anything about it, Dean, but I trust Sariel to have good judgment when it comes to the company she keeps," Castiel murmurs, his eyes watching Sara as she begins dishing out pizza.

Of course Castiel would trust her; they're kin, after all. But being family doesn't automatically equal trust; he knows first-hand. Castiel had been the one to say that it wasn't a big, happy family in Heaven, but a class system. And for him to bow down to her, to put his trust into her, she must be higher on the totem pole. But while Sara the college student can be excused, Sariel the angel had no idea of Castiel's existence or Jesus's murder until they knocked on her door. She may rank higher, but Castiel's earned his right to speak, to judge, to act.

And Castiel _will_ speak. He'll make sure of it.

"So." Mora, balancing three plates of pizza, takes the seat that Sara had vacated and hands them both a plate. It's plain cheese, which means Sara's not vegan. It also means that she's too much of a pussy to go all the way. "You're Sara's brother."

Castiel picks at the cheese, fascinated as it slowly drips back onto the plate, fingers covered in grease. "I am, yes. And you are her roommate."

Mora bites into her pizza and chews thoughtfully around the wad of melted mozzarella in her mouth. "It's funny, but I've been with Sara for a long time and none of her family has ever come for a visit. What's the occasion?"

Dean decides to answer this one. "Death in the family." No need to alert the other two about it.

"I'm sorry to hear that." She swallows. "Can I ask who it was?"

Rose sits on the arm of the couch next to Mora, smiling around her mouthful of pizza, and Dean glances at Castiel, who opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. "The… favored Son."

"Oh." Mora makes a sympathetic face. "Oh, shit. I'm _really_ sorry to hear that. My condolences." At least she sounds sincere.

"Hey!" Becks comes over with her own plate. "Pepsi's on the table if anyone wants some. Let's finish this so we can get to _Titanic_!"

Sara sits at Mora's feet, plate balanced precariously on her knees, and leans back against Mora's legs. "We should save that for the very end. Best for last."

"Agreed." Mora reaches down, Sara reaches up, and they bump fists. Dean recognizes their relationship as something kind of like what he and Sam have, that easy camaraderie, the kind Castiel wished he had with his brothers and sisters. It's a relationship forged through hardship, through late nights spent wondering whether or not they'll live to see daylight, through change and pain and bullshit and laughter and horror.

Dean settles back into the couch, arm secure around Castiel, and takes a bite of his pizza. It isn't bad.

 

By the time Rose pries Jack's cold, dead fingers from her own and sentences his popsicle ass to a lifetime at the bottom of the Atlantic, the Rose that had plied Castiel with about eighteen cups of Pepsi has long since gone to bed, Becks not too far behind her.

Castiel has nodded off twice already, forcing Dean to shake him awake until the shaking just serves to make Castiel swat at him, irritated.

Mora exchanges a look that Dean can't read with Sara, then stands and stretches, her shirt riding up and baring a flat stomach. "Well, I'm gonna sack out. Want me to drop him in Michelle's room?"

"You're gonna carry him." She's 5'1, 100lbs when wet.

Taking more care with him than she probably needs to, Mora lifts Castiel easily and tosses him over her shoulder in a fireman's hold, grinning at Dean. "I'm sure you and Sara can find something to keep yourselves busy."

Sara, illuminated by the television screen, looks up at Mora and smiles. "If I need you, I'll wake you."

"Please, don't. Finals are next week and you need to let me get some fucking sleep." With that, Mora walks away, Castiel still asleep over her shoulder, and disappears around the bend. Sara watches them go.

Dean tries to concentrate on the end of the movie, but he really can't. The old woman's standing on the railing of the ship and tosses the diamond into the sea, like a fucking idiot. The thing was worth more money than he can actually imagine, and she chucks it into the ocean? That's just shitty writing.

Sara takes the DVD player remote and stops the movie. "Yeah, I always thought it was a stupid ending, too."

They sit in silence, and Dean watches the DVD maker's logo bounce around on the generic screen saver, before he turns to her. "Why does he need sleep if you don't?"

"I do need sleep," she says, like it should be obvious. "We both do, but I'm used to it. Got past the narcolepsy thing a long time ago."

He frowns. "He never needed to sleep before."

Sara moves around until her back is resting against the arm of the couch, knees drawn up to her chest. She looks comfortable, used to it. "Probably because his vessel's soul was still in there with him."

"What does that have to do with it?" Castiel had been really bummed over losing Jimmy, but Dean had thought it was because his promises to the guy were never fulfilled.

"When we inhabit a vessel with its soul still inside, we don't have to do a lot of things, like sleep, because the vessel's soul does that for us. A human body needs sleep to heal, to function, so while we're doing all the physical stuff the soul is sleeping 24/7 so we don't have to. Our grace keeps us from needing to eat and drink, but the vessel's soul allows us to refrain from sleep. Without that soul, we need to sleep or else we'll burn the body out." Sara shrugs. "I've been in this body for so long that I sleep like a normal human being."

Huh. "But you eat."

Sara grins, and there's a piece of pizza crust stuck between two of her bottom teeth. "I like food. I like tasting things. Do I need it? No. But I love it."

She sounds a lot like Gabriel, not needing to eat but bringing them a fucking smorgasbord from China so they can chow down. The human ability to experience senses must be a real sore spot for some of the angels, which would probably make it even worse since they'd be envying a bunch of mud-monkeys.

Her Castiel-blue eyes lose whatever human warmth had been in them all night, and she shrugs off Sara Campbell like a coat. He's looking at Sariel now.

"I have a question for you." Her voice is soft, but gravelly, like how Jimmy Novak's voice was higher and lighter than Castiel's. Trying to narrow an angel's true voice through human vocal cords must be a real bitch and a half. Probably murder on the throat. "When you told Becks how you and Castiel had met, you were lying."

Oh, thank fuck she brought it up. Maybe now he'll finally get some answers. "Yeah."

"How did you meet?" It's not a question, but a demand.

"He pulled me out of Hell." Saying it always trips some kind of switch inside him, an awe button that gets pushed at the reminder that a fucking angel of God yanked his ass out of the Pit when there was no hope otherwise. Pulled him out, remade him, and then gave up everything for him. It's a debt he can never repay; even if he could, he doesn't think Castiel would accept it.

Sariel's eyes narrow and go flinty, and she bares her teeth at him, cheeks flushed in the dim light from the television. "Now _that's_ a lie."

"Fuck you," he spits. "I made a deal with a crossroads demon to save my brother, and I got sent to Hell. Forty years there before Cas came and pulled me out. On orders."

She says nothing.

"So now you can tell me just why that's such a big fucking deal."

Pursing her lips, Sariel tilts her head back and stares at the ceiling, presenting him with her thin neck. "Do you know what Hell is?"

He snorts. "Considering I've been there, yes, I know what it is."

"I meant fundamentally. Do you know what it is on a fundamental level? It's absence. It's the severance of the connection to Heaven. When an angel ventures into Hell, they're completely cut off from everything that makes them what they are. They are, effectively, alone. So, needless to say, angels don't go to Hell too often." She pauses and licks her lips, eyes on her knees. "The only time an angel ever pays a visit to Hell is when they're ordered, and those orders are very special, and very rare."

His chest thrums with a sick thrill, a need to know, and it feels like the one time he ever rode in an airplane, like he was in constant free-fall without any hope of ever hitting the ground. His heart's pounding, and for a second all he can hear is the roar of blood in his ears.

"What kind of orders?"

She lifts her gaze to him, her blue eyes glacial and without the smallest measurement of mercy. "Name three people you wouldn't want walking the earth again. First people that come to mind."

What? He has a hard enough time dealing with _evil creatures_ walking the earth, never mind people of his own race. "Uh… Hitler? Stalin? I don't know… Uh… That Chinese guy? The Potts guy?"

"Pol Pot. He was Cambodian."

Whatever.

"Obviously, all of them, and many others like them, went to Hell when they died. And you never heard about them wreaking havoc again, right?"

Dean makes a face. Of course he hasn't. They died and went to _Hell_. "No shit they didn't come back."

Sariel's eyebrows lift. "Why is that so hard to believe? You did."

True.

"The reason they didn't come back is because their souls were destroyed." At what must be a look of total and complete confusion on his face, she continues, "Look, a body can be brought back easily, or another can be remade, or someone else's body can be used. Hell, provided it happened recently enough, their buried body could be used again. A soul, however, is what really matters. A soul still has a chance of living and getting out."

He really doesn't like where this is going. There's a point to this whole spiel, and he knows it's going to be a doozy once she gets to it.

"Think of it as another layer to life. When you're alive-alive, you have a body that can die, but your soul lives on, kind of like a second life. It's a second chance, almost. But once your soul is destroyed, there's no coming back from it. No more chances. That's why you don't see Hitler or Stalin walking around, because they've been completely destroyed. Gone. It's death for the dead." She shifts on the couch again, stretching her legs out so the flats of her feet rest against his thigh. "The only ones with the power to destroy souls are angels. And the only reason an angel would ever go to Hell is to do that."

Wait. But that means --

"Are you getting it now? Castiel had orders, Dean, and they weren't to pull you out. They were to make sure you never left."

Oh.

 _God_.

He's going to throw up. He's going to throw up all over the place, and he's going to cry, and he's going to scream and rage against a Heaven that can dispatch orders like that. He wasn't fucking Hitler. He hadn't killed millions of innocent people. He'd made a deal with a demon in exchange for Sam's life, and somehow that translated to --

There's no way he can wrap his mind around it. He's going to suffocate. He can't breathe.

God, Cas --

"Then why?" It doesn't even sound like him, just this wheezy breath of a voice, wrecked with tears and shock, floored at the prospect of --

He can't. He can't deal with it.

"Why?" Sariel echoes, watching him with hooded eyes, face obscure in the darkness, the television screen black as the DVD player goes into standby mode. " _That's_ why it's such a big deal. Because pulling a soul out of Hell -- whether or not it's marked for destruction -- is just not done. It has to be why Castiel's still alive. There's no punishment for something that has no precedent."

"No," he snarls, choking on nothing, on everything. " _Why?_ Why would he even -- He didn't disobey until I practically begged him to! But -- He didn't know me then! Why would he --"

A thin hand attached to a thin wrist attached to a thin arm reaches out and folds over his shoulder, solid and warm, keeping him from flying completely apart. He looks up, vision blurred, into Sariel's almost-sympathetic eyes.

"He must have seen something in you, Dean, that was worth it."

Dragging in a breath that feels like fucking glass in his chest, he rubs his hand over his mouth and sits back, pressing the back of his head into the couch, grounding himself. He closes his eyes and breathes into the silence, the new reality building around him.

He exhales. Okay. "Heaven declared war on Hell, blaming Lucifer for Jesus."

"Jesus's soul would have had to have been destroyed in order for that to happen."

"And you said only an angel could do that." He opens his eyes and sees her nod. "Lucifer was an angel."

She gives him a small smirk, the fight sparking in her eyes. They're on the same page. "But you don't think it was Lucifer."

He shakes his head and rubs a hand over his face. Fuck, but he needs to sleep for eternity. "Too many inconsistencies, too many vague reports from Heaven, not one news report on TV. Can't be him. Do you honestly think he could slip through the Gates of Heaven without being noticed?"

"Yes," she says, then shrugs. "But do I think that's what happened? No."

A yawn punctuates her statement, and she stretches, her back arching over the arm of the couch. Dean watches her wearily.

"We'll finish this in the morning when everyone's awake." In a graceful movement, she swings her legs over and stands, hidden in shadow, the white lettering of 'Bug' the only thing truly visible. It's not the first time he's been on his ass and at the mercy of an angel, and it won't be the last. He catches a whiff of mountain air and closes his eyes against the Pavlovian shudder that slithers up his spine. "Dean."

He inhales. "Yeah."

"Look, you seem like a real 'oh, my manpain, I'm Batman' kind of guy, and you'll probably blame yourself anyway, but he chose to do it. He _chose_ , Dean, which for an angel still under Heaven's control is a fucking miracle."

Opening his eyes, he looks up and sees Sara's silhouette as she leaves the room. "I'm not worth that."

"He thinks you are," she calls from wherever she is. "Night, Dean."

 

The giant-ass crucifix on the wall is the first thing he sees when he drags himself to Michelle's room. There's an equally enormous Jesus nailed to it, his head hanging in resignation, abandoned by his Father and left to the mercy of some bloodthirsty assholes. Weird to think that he and Jesus have something in common.

He glances around. There's one window, and it's the kind that opens with a rolling handle. It's a single room, comprised of a shitty stock dresser, a shitty stock desk and chair, and a shitty stock bed. The only saving grace is that Castiel's asleep in that shitty stock bed, on his back, head turned to the side, chest not-quite-rising with each not-breath he takes, sheets kicked off completely. He's wearing boxer briefs.

Dean exhales, a whoosh of air going out of him, and sags like someone cut his strings. Stripping off his shirt and jeans, he throws them somewhere behind him. He hopes they land right on Jesus’s head.

Castiel stirs as Dean slides in from the foot of the bed, opens his eyes when Dean crawls over his outstretched legs. Knees on either side, Dean lowers himself down to rest on his elbows, breathing in the mountain air that clings to Castiel's neck.

"Dean --"

He noses his way to Castiel's jaw, heart pounding. "Shut up, okay? Just -- don't talk. I’m sorry I woke you up, but I need you awake for a second. Once I'm done, you can go back to sleep. But right now…” Dean pauses, swallows. “I need to kiss you, and you need to tell me that's okay."

This will decide everything. He's explicitly asking for this, and he's never been more present in a single moment in his life.

Castiel stares up at him with wide eyes, translucent in the dim light from the city that shines through the window; he's never looked so otherworldly or more human. Castiel's lips part, tongue darting out to wet them, and Dean’s distracted by the shine of spit left behind. He sways forward, down, unable to stop himself, rubs his top lip in it, wet and hot and going straight to his head.

A strong hand slips over his chest, sliding up, over his nipple, his collarbone, to cup his neck, Castiel's palm cool against his heated skin. Dean closes his eyes, and they shift together, thighs brushing.

Sweat beads on Dean’s skin, clinging to his back, trying to help against the heat. It’s just one more thing prickling at him, one more thing driving him crazy until the fingers of Castiel’s other hand drag through it as they clutch at him and, _god_ , yes.

Lowering his head, Dean inhales deeply, presses his lips against the soft skin at Castiel’s throat, right where shoulder and neck meet. Castiel makes a noise, a moan, a whisper, and tilts his head back, baring more skin -- uncharted territory that Dean claims as his own, mouth moving up, a slow crawl of lips and teeth and tongue. His heart threatens to burst out of his chest, blood pounding in his ears as thin hips drag over his own in a slow roll. Castiel lets out a ragged gasp, fingers tightening over the bare skin at his shoulder, digging in until it's painful, perfect.

Their noses brush as Castiel brings his mouth up to Dean's jaw, fingers sliding into Dean’s hair as his teeth scraping against stubble and skin, tongue licking up the sweat there, tasting and testing and yeah, that's real good. Dean's fingers drift down to Castiel's stomach, over the sharp cut of his hips, to cup Castiel's cock through the cotton. He drags his thumb across the head and rubs until the cotton is wet, dragging a low sound out of Castiel's throat.

 _You don't get any of my movie references._ , he thinks, scattering slow, open-mouthed kisses across Castiel's shoulders, moving his lips down to where Jimmy Novak relinquished his heart to the angel inside of him and pressing his mouth against the erratic pounding there. His fingers dip into the waistband of Castiel's underwear and pull, baring Castiel's cock to the air, immediately curling around it. It's hot against his palm, like holding burning coal in his hands, and he moans at the feel of it, thumbing the head again and relishing the way Castiel's hips buck into his touch.

 _You're fucking creepy when you stare._ Dean catches Castiel's nipple between his lips and relishes the way it hardens under his tongue. _You're going to get us arrested in Hawaii over hermit crabs._

Castiel's hand slides up to grasp the back of Dean's neck, forcing him to abandon Castiel's chest and look at him. They're breathless, flushed, hard. Dean can’t remember ever being this hard for someone. He hasn’t been. Not like this.

He wants to take Castiel into his mouth, feel the weight and the salt of him on his tongue, let him all the way inside.

 _You saw something worth saving._

"You woke me," Castiel gasps, rolling his hips, thrusting into Dean's grip. "You had purpose. Now _do_ it."

 _You gripped me tight._

 _I love you._

He surges down, fingers roughly angling Castiel’s jaw up. Their mouths slide wetly together, open and hungry, Dean swallowing every noise, every gasp that Castiel has on offer until he breaks away. It’s just for a second, but it’s enough time to see the wild look in Castiel’s eyes before Dean captures Castiel’s bottom lip between his teeth, sliding up until he can shove his tongue inside, and claim, and claim, and claim. This is his. This is only his, because there's never going to be anyone else. They have three days, and he's going to stretch it out until there's not one second left to spare.

Castiel’s tongue slides into his mouth like fucking velvet, staking his own claim; it’s the best kind of possession. He angles Castiel's jaw and uses the easier access to plunder his mouth, slowing it down until it's a steady flow of tongue and breath, the world narrowing to small points of connection. Their mouths. Castiel's hands on his skin. Castiel's hips rolling in a simmer, dick hot and heavy in Dean's hand, building up to something that has been there for a long time.

Hands slide down Dean’s sides and reconvene at his underwear, fingers dipping inside and mapping out the terrain, wrapping around his cock and cupping his balls, moving even further until --

Dean drags his mouth away, dizzy, gasping and pressing the bridge of his nose to Castiel’s jaw as pleasure spikes through him sharply, like the sudden crack of a gunshot. Fuck, it’s good, it’s so good, Castiel’s hand on him, around him. Dean shudders, tongues a spot on Castiel’s neck that leaves him trembling under Dean’s hands as they writhe together, Castiel squeezing his cock. Stars explode in front of Dean’s eyes and his mouth drops open in a low moan.

God, they're like teenagers, giving handjobs in the dark, in the bed of some religious chick they’ve never met. Becks and Rose are probably recording everything from outside the door, and it's still the best he's ever had. Thighs trembling and aching with the strain, lips bruised and too wet, too sensitive, too hot. He's going to burn away to nothing.

Castiel’s right there with him. Under his fingers, Castiel begins to go stiff at Dean’s relentless rubbing to the leaking slit of his cock, close, so close. Dean’s half a step behind him, Castiel’s fingers mimicking Dean’s own movements against his dick.

"Fuck -- Cas --" His voice is fucking shot, wrecked as Castiel's mouth drops open on a soundless scream, his back arching. Dean jacks him through it, slick and sticky and perfect, until he's slamming right over the edge with him.

It's like being punched right in the gut, or having a bomb dropped directly on him. Michelle's room fades out, the high pitched sound of radio noise all that he knows. He's flying.

He's gone.

Okay, Cas.

Now you can go back to sleep.

 

 _There is a carnival. A ferris wheel. Popcorn on the ground. Laughter and the bells of music._

 _Amid the rides and the ice cream kiosks is a booth._

 _Step right up! Don't be shy! Pick a name, any name!_

 _It is a naming booth, lit up with fat bulbs that blink in and out wildly. Beyond the booth is a wheel, like in_ Wheel of Fortune _, with all sorts of titles in each colored section._

 _How about you, son? It is the man from the concession stand, from the roller coaster. He is wearing a hat and speaking in a language that has long since left the world. Would you like to take a spin? First one's on the house; after that, you need to pay a token._

 _Do you run the whole place?_

 _I go wherever you do._

 _He spins. Years drip by as he waits for it to stop. Finally, the needle lands on a white space, between president and Jeremy._

 _There is no name there._

 _What does that mean, he asks._

 _It's not official, the man says. He made sure you wouldn't have the chance, but he forgot one important thing. You can still be Named._

 _Who are you?_

 _I am the wind that screamed atop the mountain when he spoke to us. The sound of the telephone ringing in your house when you are not there to hear it. The death of every petal of every flower of every field, and the rebirth. I am the Lumen, the Luminary._

 _The man smiles and points to the Ferris wheel._

 _It flew up there._

 _He turns back, but the naming booth is empty of all names now._

 _I will turn up eventually._

 

It's still dark when he jerks awake, surprised and really disorientated, not quite sure where the hell he is until he sees his jeans hanging on a giant crucifix on the wall. Oh, right. Michelle's room, in Sariel's dorm. Fuck, he's in a _college_. He's also incredibly warm, soft from sleep, but he doesn't think that's part of the college package.

Castiel shifts against him and pulls him closer, tucking Dean's head under his chin, churning out heat like a furnace. The feel of Castiel's body against his is enough to make his eyelids droop, to make the world fade out again. He's fucking tired, but he's comfortable and… Jesus, this must be what happy feels like.

"You said we had time," Castiel murmurs with a hum. "Relax."

If an orgasm is all it takes for Castiel to chill out, he needs to have them more often. Dean is more than willing to help.

He grins into the skin of Castiel's throat, then presses his lips there, his cock stirring with interest. Almost surreptitiously, Castiel slips a thigh between his, bringing his half-hard dick up against Dean's, and _that's_ even better. They're wrapped together so tightly that Dean isn't sure where either of them begin or end, or if they somehow came together during the night. Besides the obvious.

Dean pushes himself onto an elbow, because he wants to see. Castiel tilts his head slightly and gazes up at him, eyes wide and clear, soft as they look at him like he's something precious, worth all the bullshit Castiel's been through on his behalf.

He swallows around the sudden lump in his throat and lowers his head, presses his lips to each of Castiel's eyelids, to the swell of his cheek, to the side of his nose. It's girly and entirely too sappy, and come morning he'll kick his own ass for it, but right now, it's exactly what he wants to be doing. Castiel doesn't seem to mind, either, boneless beneath him with an honest-to-fuck smile on his face.

Dean's heart thuds painfully. "You ever going to tell me your story?"

Slowly, Castiel's eyes slide open and fixate on him in that creepy, endearing way. Dean reaches out and traces Castiel's bottom lip with his thumb, the flesh soft and begging to be sucked on, but he refrains because he has _willpower_.

"My story?" Castiel asks quietly against Dean's thumb, tongue darting out to taste the callous, and Dean hisses in surprise, hips thrusting against Castiel's. That… was surprisingly hot. "You mean my origin."

"No, the story of Christmas. Yeah, your origin."

Castiel opens his mouth and Dean's about to shove his tongue in it when his phone buzzes from his pocket.

Dean practically breaks his ass falling out of the bed and he limps over to where the crucifix is, shucking his pants from Jesus's hold. His phone lights up through the fabric of his pocket. He takes it out and glances at the screen. Damn it, Sam. Worst timing ever.

He flips his phone open.

 _You were right. It's a fake._

There's a loud crash out in the suite, and Dean's on his feet before the screaming starts, Castiel already whipping the door open and storming into the living room. Dean skids to a stop, his bare feet squeaking against the linoleum.

Well, this is a bit of a fucking mess.

Rose gasps against the arm wrapped around her throat, holding her back against a woman in a three-piece suit. It's an angel. In her hand, right by Rose's head, is a sword. It's not overly large and could probably be called a dagger, but it glints dangerously in the light from the kitchen. There are three more people in suits, all holding their swords, one standing over an unconscious Becks. Her hands are sliced up, cut into, and it's probably due to the smashed electronic thing by her head. It takes Dean a minute to realize what it is.

"You were _actually_ recording us?!"

Rose burbles a reply.

"You're trespassing. And Karoz, you'd better have a really fucking good reason for strangling my roommate, because I'm about two seconds from shoving that blade up your ass," Sara says loudly, stepping into the room. Her blonde hair looks even lighter, almost white, and her overly-large sports jersey makes her look like the world's biggest five-year old, but the rage on her face speaks of a power that Dean can't even imagine. The bitch is going to kill someone, that's for certain. He feels incredibly awkward, standing in the presence of a bunch of angels in his come-stained underwear. "Veguaniel, Oumriel, you two can start explaining whenever you're ready."

A movement to his right draws Dean's attention to Mora, who's hiding in the shadows. She presses a finger to her lips and he looks away, hoping no one saw him looking at her. If she needs the element of surprise, then she'll have it.

"Perhaps you ought to talk to _me_."

Red flashes in the dark like a road flare being lit and a head lifts, a face that Dean knows well emerging from the shadows. Castiel stiffens next to him, taut as a bowstring, mouth pinched in a fascinating mix of hate and displeasure. It's hot. And if he keeps thinking that every little thing Castiel does is sexy, things are going to get awkward, and he'll probably get his ass killed.

"Hello, Anna," Castiel says. It sounds like _I am going to rip off your face and eat it_.

"Anael," Sara sneers a moment later, lip curled in disdain. "And how is my favorite sister?"

Anna tilts her head, a waterfall of red flowing over her shoulder. Dean can't believe he slept with her; she's making his skin crawl.

"I'm your favorite? I thought Nafriel was your favorite."

"She is. How is she?"

He holds up his hands, placating. "Okay, let's all calm down for a second. Anna, what's up? We have an issue here?"

Sara's head whips around. "Are you serious? I'd say we have a pretty big fucking issue here! They're _strangling my roommates_."

Taking a slow step forward, ignoring the unhappy twist to Castiel's mouth, Dean smiles pleadingly at Anna. "Can't argue with her there, Anna. How about you let them go? They've got nothing to do with this… whatever this is."

They've history between them. He was _inside_ her, for fuck's sake. It's got to count for something.

Anna doesn't react for a second, just stares at Sara with wide eyes and a funny little smile. It's an expression that Dean can't classify, but it scares the shit out of him. Finally, she blinks and jerks her head toward the chick holding Rose in a chokehold. The angel uncoils her arm from Rose's neck, and Rose drops to the floor, coughing and dragging in painful gulps of air.

"I'd forgotten," Anna murmurs, tilting her head and gazing down at Rose like an ill-favored pet. "Humans are so fragile."

Or maybe it's not going to count for anything.

"You'd know," Dean spits. This always happens. When is he going to learn? God, in the _Impala_ , no less. As soon as they get back to Bobby's, he's steam-cleaning the entire interior. "Or you did, before you went back to Bible camp."

She smiles, eyes flickering over his half-naked form. "I _went_ back? I was _forced_ back. Why don't you ask Castiel all about it? I'm sure he can explain it to you better than I ever could."

Dean glances at Castiel, but there's nothing to be gleaned from the face he'd kissed just minutes ago. Castiel's become stone. Really angry stone.

"I was acting under orders," Castiel says, low and rough, like a cobra opening up its hood.

"So am I." Anna lifts her chin and gazes down her nose at them. "And my orders are to eliminate all of you."

Sara scoffs. "On what grounds?"

"Treason." There's a blade in Anna's hand now, which is so awesome. Not. "For aiding Lucifer in his escape from Hell and acting as accomplices in his bid for the Throne. I have been given strict instructions to terminate you… completely. And I will go through with it." She glances at Castiel, who sucks in a surprised breath at the dig.

Dean steps forward, the muscles in his hand locked up so tightly that he has to make a fist just to relieve the pressure. He'd clock her right in the face if it wouldn't break his hand, and he's not about to give her the satisfaction. "You really think we'd side with the Devil? Open your eyes, Anna: there _is_ no Devil. Lucifer never got out of his cage. Your orders are a crock and you know it."

She turns to look at him, eyes soft with sympathy. "I'm sorry it came to this, Dean."

Dean snorts and resists the urge to spit on her. This isn't the Anna he knew; this is Anael, scrubbed of all humanity and redressed in Heaven's finest brainwashing. Something really _is_ fractured upstairs, if even Anna can look him in the eye and say with one-hundred percent certainty that he's Lucifer's ass monkey.

Well, fuck her. She was a lousy lay.

"You know what, _Anael_? You can take your sorrys and shove them up your ass."

Anna blinks, because apparently slaughtering them all is no big deal, and he opens his mouth to say something about that, but the way Sara's head tilts just so stops him. Is she trying to signal him?

Suddenly, Mora launches herself from the shadows with a shout, slamming into Anna before she can even turn around to see what all the commotion is about. Her red hair flies wildly around as she flips over the back of the couch and lands on the coffee table, which collapses under her weight. Any minute now that Alex kid is going to come pounding on the door to make sure Sara isn't being raped.

Mora rolls her shoulders as Anna climbs to her feet, kicking one of the table legs away from her.

"Becks! Now!" Sara shouts, lunging for Castiel. She grabs his wrist and they both disappear.

Apparently Becks isn't as unconscious as Dean'd been led to believe, because she jumps to her feet, rips the painting down, and slams her bloody palm into the center of the -- oh man, it's that sigil from the Green Room. It's painted on the wall.

Anna screams as light envelopes her and her lackeys, bamfing their sorry asses to the end of the universe.

When the light clears and everyone takes their respective hands and arms away from their eyes, Becks rushes to help Rose to her feet, murmuring over the bruise that's purpling Rose's neck.

Castiel, back in the room, stares at the sigil on the wall. "You were expecting them?"

"No," Sara says, a little flustered, lips flattening in displeasure. "But I haven't been liked in Heaven since I decided to stick around here, so it was only a matter of time before someone showed up. Didn't expect it to be Anael, though." She frowns at Dean, of course. "Sounds like you two had some history."

A muscle twitches in his throat. "Yeah, kinda."

"Not surprised. Anael always had a habit of finding someone who was… already attached to someone else, and then stealing them away." Something dark and ugly creeps into Sariel's face, and Dean swallows nervously at the sheer rage there.

"She was human --"

"She's _been_ human. Many times." She cocks an eyebrow. "Time has no meaning for an angel. No offense, but you were just one name on a long list."

Wow. That's… ow.

Castiel says nothing, and Dean doesn't expect him to. What can you really say when you're a robot-angel with a sister who slept with your new squeeze because she's a giant whore? There really isn't much.

From the living room, Becks shrieks, "I can't even believed the blood thing worked!" She's holding onto Rose's hand, like letting go of it will bring Anael and her crew back. "I mean, when you told me about angels and demons -- yeah, okay, I thought you were being psychotic and paranoid. I am so sorry I didn't believe you, Sara. Oh my god, you're seriously an angel. I've been rooming with an angel."

Becks is trembling hard, eyes wide and palms still bleeding, her voice cracking on every other word. She's going into shock. Dean's seen plenty of people -- innocent people having never believed in the supernatural only to have it shoved in their faces -- adopt that wide-eyed, horror-stricken expression as reality resets for them.

Rose just cocks her head at Dean and croaks, "So… you're pretty naked."

Mora calmly brings them water in Mickey Mouse coffee mugs, which Rose accepts with a small noise. Becks has to hold the mug with both hands.

"Anael won't be gone long," Castiel says, low and urgent. His hand accidentally brushes against Dean's, and Dean can't suppress the shiver that travels up his spine at the touch. Castiel flashes heated blue eyes at him before pulling down the I'm-An-Angel-I-Don't-Understand-Your-Peculiar-Human-Bodily-Reactions mask. An angel of God really shouldn't look that smug.

"Is there somewhere you can go?" Sara asks, all business.

Dean nods. "Yeah, we're covered."

"Okay," she says, eyes hard and shoulders back. She looks every bit the holy warrior she stopped being in favor of assuming the identity of a bitchy, vegan college student. All that's missing is a gold-plated chest plate and a sword. "Girls? You're going with Dean and Cas to a safe place. You can't stay here."

Rose stops rubbing her throat and says hoarsely, "We can go to my aunt's. She lives twenty minutes away."

Castiel shakes his head. "To them, you are guilty by associating with us, and they will come for you. You will be safe where we are going."

"Mora," Sara calls, and Mora snaps to attention. "Keep an eye on them."

Mora adopts a pained face, almost resigned, like she wants to argue but knows it's a lost cause. It's almost as if this isn't the first time Sara's asked Mora to do something she doesn't want to but will anyway. It's in the lines of frustration, affection, and acceptance on her young face.

Then it hits him. Sara and Mora might be more than just roommates, which is pretty hot. Sara probably throws Mora down, spreads her open, and goes at it until Mora's screaming brings Alex to their door, asking them to keep it down and whether or not Sara wants to go out to a coffee shop on Friday. To which she will reply, lips shiny and wet with something that isn't spit, that she's busy.

Okay, that's fucking hot.

He turns his head and meets Sara's death glare head-on, grinning cheekily, because how can she not enjoy that image? Seriously.

Her lips twist, and she's definitely holding back a smirk. Score.

She turns to Mora and smiles at her, reaching out to brush the tips of her fingers against Mora's jaw. "Hey. It'll be fine. But you might want to call your fam and let them in on it."

Mora snorts. "Like they'll fight."

"Yeah, never mind." Sara glances at Dean. "I trust you'll take care of all of them. Preferably while wearing pants."

Because they're not just her girlfriend and roommates. They're not just her friends. They're her family, and he gets it. How could he not?

"Yeah, of course. What are you gonna do?"

She looks away from him and pads over to lay a thin hand on Castiel's shoulder, gripping it tightly and nodding at his hard stare. She withdraws her hand and turns, smiling widely at all of them, which wars with the dark promise in her eyes.

"What should have been done a long time ago. I'm gonna find Raguel."


	11. Part Ten

When they get to Bobby's, Sam's on him like shit on Velcro, monster arms wrapped around him and squeezing the stuffing out of him. Over Sam's shoulder are about two-hundred people, all milling about the inside of the house, poking curiously at the pictures on the walls, the knick-knacks on the mantle, studying. They're angels. All of them, angels, wide-eyed and curious at the bounty of human emotional attachment to stupid shit.

Sam lets him go and Dean just gives him a look, because what the fuck. Sam smiles. "You can thank Gabriel. When we discovered the Leviathan was a fake, he rounded up his garrison and brought them here. They're with us, Dean. We have a _garrison_."

" -- of angels who won't stop touching my things!" Bobby roars from somewhere. "What -- Put that down, you asshole, that was my _wife's_! Gabriel, you sonuvabitch, tell your people to stop putting their grubby fingerprints all over my house!"

"Cut them some slack," Gabriel answers blithely, and Dean struggles to see him through the sea of vessels. "Most of them have never been to the mortal plane. This is a big deal for them! Like Christmas! Look, we even get a fat guy with a beard!"

Something shatters, and Dean tries to quell the pounding of his heart. A whole garrison on their side. Not that two-hundred angels will do much against the hordes of Heaven, but it's something. It's more than they've ever had.

Sam grips his shoulders hard, trying to capture Dean's attention, but Dean's too focused on watching Castiel introduce Becks and Rose to a gaggle of angels by the fireplace. Castiel looks up, meets Dean's gaze, and inclines his head with a small smile. It's a 'hey, remember that time we had sex and it was awesome?' smile. Dean really likes that smile.

"Dean? Dean! Hey, so, what happened? Gabriel said that Anna has orders to kill you," Sam says quietly, anxiously, loud enough to be heard over the din but soft enough that none of the other angels will hear it. They don't need to incite a riot over one of their own trying to kill another.

He nods, reaches up, and clasps Sam's arm. "She did. But we used a trusty Angel Be-Gone spell and sent her ass packing. Dude, did you know that wasn't the first time she's been human? She's been down here, like, a hundred times."

Sam's eyebrows crawl up his forehead. "What?"

"Yeah, every time she gets horny, she comes down and fucks some dumb sap." Which makes him the dumbest sap of them all. All those other people and she was _still_ shitty in bed. In car. Whatever. "Never mind that. She came there to charge us with treason, because we're all supposedly BFF with Lucifer."

"But Lucifer never rose."

"That's not what they told her, or the rest of Heaven. Someone's pulling the strings, Sam."

He opens his mouth to tell Sam exactly who he thinks it is, but Castiel comes to stand at his side, their hands brushing again. As soon as the would-be war ends before it even begins, he's taking Castiel to fucking Maui for a week and they're going to spend the whole time in their hotel room, testing the limits of biology and what two guys can do together. Guy and angel. Shit, they might need two weeks.

"It astounds me," Castiel says, surveying the room with a pinched mouth, "how many of them did not see that Heaven was so corrupt. How blind and deaf they were to the rot."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

Every sound ceases, voices falling away, and Dean turns to see Gabriel perched on the back of the couch, one leg drawn up and the other dangling comfortably. He points at Castiel, expression dark.

"I wouldn't go casting stones just yet, bro. Don't forget, not too long ago you were as blind, deaf and ignorant as they were. You _were_ them. So, what, you think rebelling in the eleventh hour excuses you from all the times you blindly followed Heaven's orders?" Gabriel snorts. "It doesn't. You joined the game just as late as we all did."

Castiel says nothing to refute that, just lets the silence fester and drag up every memory Dean has of Castiel from his grand entrance in the barn to the moment he sliced his arm and started drawing a map of his own fall from grace.

 _"I'm the one that gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition."_

 _"Just so you understand why I can't help."_

 _"I'm not a hammer, as you say. I have questions. I have doubts. I don't know what is right and what is wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed here."_

 _"The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it."_

 _"I'll hold him off! I'll hold them all off!"_

He turns and meets Castiel's gaze, blood rushing in his ears.

 _"Rejoice, favored one, and do not fear, for your prayers are heard, and I have finally found you."_

I finally found you.

I found you.

Dean whirls on Gabriel and shouts, "He pulled me out, against orders! He came for me in _Hell_!"

There's a minute of dead silence, and then the two-hundred angels in Gabriel's garrison explode. They shout, they gasp, they point at Castiel like he's either the second coming or the Devil himself, and Gabriel glowers at him from his place on the couch.

"He was the _first_ to do something, to open his eyes and see that even Heaven was wrong," he says, neck so tight that he's probably going to strain something as soon as this is all over. A hush falls over the room, the angels whispering quietly while still being able to hear his tiny human voice.

Bobby steps into the room, silent, watching, and Dean catches his gaze. Bobby nods, and Dean takes it as permission, as encouragement, to continue.

"You all know why an angel gets sent to Hell," he says to the room at large, and all of their eyes fall on Castiel, who stands stiff and awkward at Dean's side. "He had orders. Special, rare orders. For me. But instead of following through, he cut me loose and got me out, even knowing that he could be killed for it. He did it anyway."

Gabriel is surprisingly silent and tight-lipped, which is a really good look for him. He should use it more often. Like, always.

"So as far as I'm concerned, Gabriel," Dean sneers, eyes scanning the room and making sure all attention is on him. "He's nothing like them. And he's totally excused for all the times he followed Heaven's orders, because he disobeyed the one that really counted."

They're all looking at him now like he's the Bill Pullman to their alien-fighting civilians and they're waiting for him to make a speech worthy of July 4th.

Fuck it. He's got the attention of a garrison of angels, and he has a few things to say. Might as well say them now.

"Okay, look," he says loudly, standing tall and proud. Or, hoping that's what he looks like. Sam's still twelve feet tall behind him. "I know none of you want to be here. You've been spoon-fed this notion that all humans are mud-monkeys and imperfect and stupid, and you know what? It's absolutely true. It is. We suck. Humanity's awful. While you're sitting on your clouds and jamming on your harps, we're down here killing each other and raping and being prejudiced and destroying the planet and burning shit down and kicking puppies. I won't lie. We're not a pretty race.

"But that's Humanity. As a whole. As one race, we're dumb and panicky, and we do stupid shit in God's name. But that whole is made up of individual people -- and individually, we're actually not so bad.

"Six months ago? I would have said that Heaven was paradise, that it was everything I've ever read and heard about, and more. Guess what? As a whole, Heaven's not that much different than Humanity. Killing, and being prejudiced, and destroying the planet, and burning shit down, and probably kicking a puppy or two. But individually, hey, you're not so bad."

He glances at Castiel, who stares back with soft eyes.

"On Earth, when the guys in charge have been doing things they're not supposed to, when they're saying one thing and then doing another, when they're lying to the people? It's time for a regime change. Sounds to me like something's rotten in Heaven, and it isn't Gabriel's sense of humor."

Gabriel flips him off, but he's gazing at Dean with something like pride.

"You've been lied to. I don't know why, but there it is. Jesus Christ, our lord and savior, our homeboy, was murdered, but not by Lucifer. Old Lucy's everyone's scapegoat, isn't he? Something bad happens, well, must've been the Devil's work. This time, it can't be blamed on him. Someone in _your_ department tried to pull a fast one and cover up the deed by staging a war. And they almost got away with it."

He sucks in a breath, dizzy, and pushes on. "These past few days, we busted our asses trying to find the dick that ganked Christ so they could be brought to justice. Even though that dick isn't Lucifer, it doesn't change the fact that justice needs to be brought down on _someone's_ head. So, I'm asking you now, all of you, to leave the Heaven mentality behind and start being individuals. And I'm asking you, as individuals, to stand with us. Don't fight in the make-pretend war. Stand with us, and we'll find the sonuvabitch that did this."

There should be a snappy final line, something that hooks them and sends them into a frenzy, morale so high that it should be illegal. But he's got nothing. It's not even the 4th, or else he'd bow out with the Independence Day thing.

They're not in a frenzy. They're not even applauding. They're staring at him like he's that guy in every city, wearing a sandwich billboard and handing out pamphlets about the Apocalypse, like they want to just walk by without making any kind of eye-contact.

"I thought it was good," Sam mutters behind him, and Dean snorts. He can always count on Sammy for support, in all his endeavors. Except when succubus mayors and Slim Jims are involved.

"Well, I never claimed to be a good public speaker," Dean says with a shrug, turning around to face Sam. Becks, Rose, and Mora are standing there too, hard-faced and supportive. His little rag-tag team of college girls; the hordes of Heaven ought to be trembling.

Castiel places a hand discreetly on the small of his back. "It was enough. It was more than enough. Thank you, Dean."

He leans back into Castiel's touch and ignores Sam's pointed look. There's nothing to see here, nothing to make a fuss over. He's just boning the coolest angel in all existence, that's all.

"Not to bring the party down," Mora says, eyes flashing black just once. It must be some kind of unconscious thing. Usually the black eyes come out when demons want you to know what they are. It's a fashion statement. But Mora doesn't seem to notice. "But do we even have a plan? You just asked a garrison of angels to rebel against Heaven and bring down the insider who killed Jesus. Except you didn't actually name anyone, so we're all going into this blind."

"Yeah, Patton," Gabriel drawls, throwing a jovial arm around Dean's shoulders. Castiel takes his hand away, stepping back, and that just isn't on. But Gabriel won't let go of him, clinging like a limpet, or a drunk asshole. "So, fearless leader, what's the sitch?"

Bobby takes the opportunity to push past a couple of angels and stalk over to Gabriel, his face red with anger. Dean's pretty sure the beard cache of weapons is going to come into play any second. "What the hell am I supposed to do? I can't house two-hundred of your people! This place ain't hardly big enough for these three."

Castiel blinks, but looks pleased at being included.

"This is the thanks that I get for handing you an entire garrison on a silver platter? What do you want from me? If they leave, they'll be slaughtered. You've got some good wards here. We're safe for the time being." Gabriel shrugs, then gestures out at the angels all milling about. "Besides, I like the kitschy feel. It's got a very 'my wife left me and took my truck and my dog' atmosphere about it. It's a good place for my boys and girls to learn all about the beauty of Humanity." Gabriel grins and Bobby looks like he's going to take a handful of Gabriel's hair and use it as leverage when he slams that weasely face into the floor.

Dean sighs. "Look, I didn't have a specific plan in mind. All I know is, your boy Metatron is behind it."

The room explodes in a maelstrom of shouting and pointed fingers that shows no signs of stopping. Which is fine. He can wait. Not like there's a war coming or anything. Oh, wait.

"That is a false accusation!" An angel wearing the face of a thirteen-year old snarls, eyes darkening in rage and offense. "I should kill you where you stand for even _insinuating_ that the Voice would ever --"

"Rope it in, Charoum!" Gabriel shouts, and the other angel falls silent. "All of you shut the fuck up! Listen to the guy for a second!"

Dean shoots Gabriel a look that hopefully conveys gratitude. "I don't know why we didn't see it sooner; no one who smiles that much can ever be trusted. Don't you people watch movies? It's always the unassuming, happy ones."

Castiel stares at him and Dean hopes that devastated glint in his eye is because he once again fails to understand Dean's references. It's been one hell of a week for Castiel, and the losses keep on coming. He can't imagine what it's like to lose faith and trust in someone like the Metatron, especially considering that he hasn't voted in an election ever, and he isn't quite sure who the current president is. It's never factored into his life, so there was no reason to keep track of it. The president is a distant figure, hardly anything like what the Metatron represents. It doesn't get any higher than the Voice of God. It's not a position that one takes in hopes of progression.

And since God stopped speaking a while ago, it seems like the Metatron got bored and a little power-hungry. But that's hardly a reason for killing the Savior of Mankind, or for declaring a war on Hell. Or, fuck, for trying to kill the prophesied Righteous Man.

"Okay, so, we want to bring him down." Sam says, echoing Dean's earlier words.

Dean shrugs. "I guess? Seems like the thing to do."

Bobby looks at him incredulously. "It does."

"Tell you what!" Gabriel announces brightly, removing his arm from Dean and tossing it around Bobby's shoulders. "Let's have an arts and crafts night! I bet you've always wondered how angel armor is made. We can have a competition to see who can make the best. Winner gets... my undying love and devotion, I guess."

Sam stares. "We are so fucked."

"Fuck you, General MacArthur." Gabriel sniffs. "I think it's a great idea. It'll keep the kiddies busy while we come up with a plan of action. We have, after all, about a day and a half before the big dance number."

Rose clears her throat and raises her hand, like she's in school. "Do we have the materials to make angel armor? I mean, not that I know what you guys wear, but I doubt it's anything that could be found around here." She glances at Bobby and her eyes go wide. "No offense. I meant, uh, on the planet."

Gabriel only grins. "You let me worry about that. And Bobby? Pull out all the macaroni and paper plates you got -- we're gonna make _art_."

 

There are two-hundred soldiers of fucking God sitting in various states of repose in Bobby's house, lining the walls, sitting on the floor, on the stairs, in the halls, all making chest plates out of "stars and unicorn spooge and faerie dust", or whatever Gabriel had said. In the center of the living room, surrounded by angels, Becks is explaining the benefits of a double stitch over a cross-stitch, because she used to be a theater major with a concentration in Costume Design and she picked up a few things. One of the angels asks her a question, but from where Dean's standing in the doorway he can't hear it.

The kitchen's pretty free, one or two angels leaning up against the counters and trying to shape something out of what looks like steel. Their vessels' faces are scrunched in concentration as they try to navigate their stuff with fingers that don't belong to them.

Castiel is seated at the kitchen table, silently gluing macaroni to paper plates as Gabriel makes a noodle face out of his, babbling on about how Neanderthals really are a subset of _Homo sapiens_ , and didn't die out, but rather bred with modern day humans to the point that they went extinct and their skeleton variations were lost as modern humans dominated.

Castiel doesn't sound or look very interested, and Dean has the brilliant idea to take him by the tie, lead him upstairs and into his bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind them. That's about a million times better than fucking arts and crafts, and he's about to make the argument for it when Sam waves at him from the back door, lifting a beer in invitation. Bobby's already out there, sitting on the back steps.

"Dude! Do you _want_ to get us all killed? Get the fuck back inside!"

Sam only grins. "Dean, what do you take us for? The wards were extended. We just needed some air."

Sighing, he makes his way across the kitchen, nodding at the two angels as they look up from whatever it is they're doing to bow their heads at him, and stops at the table. He peers over Castiel's shoulder to see the masterpiece, which turns out to be some kind of symbol. Made out of rigatoni. Go team.

Gabriel's is of boobs, not a face. Classy. The proud grin on Gabriel's face says he agrees wholeheartedly. "I'm gonna stick it on the fridge when I'm finished."

Rolling his eyes, Dean runs his fingers across the sweep of Castiel's shoulders as he walks out the door, grinning in victory at the shudder he drags out of Castiel. He really can't wait to go again. If handjobs were that hot, then the real thing might kill him. And sleeping with someone who's so intense that if he's not wearing some kind of protection -- Kevlar, maybe -- then he might not see daylight? That's exciting.

Cool air hits him the second he walks outside, rolling like sweet relief across his cheeks. He hadn't realized how hot it was in there, how much body heat was being generated. Bound to happen, especially with two-hundred angels crammed in there together, not to mention all the hot air that Gabriel puts out on a nearly constant basis. He closes his eyes and sighs, all the tension dropping out of his shoulders to ride the night breeze across Bobby's backyard.

Sam uncaps a beer and hands it to him, clinking the necks of the bottles together out of habit before taking a swig. Dean follows suit and rolls it around in his mouth, liquid gold washing over his tongue, bitter and rich. He doesn't recognize the brand, but it's some decent stuff.

"So, anyone else feel like we're going to our deaths?"

Dean snorts. "You mean besides every day of our lives?"

He gets a grunt from Bobby for that.

They sit in companionable silence, sipping their beers and looking up at the sky. Out here, pushed away enough from civilization, there are so many more stars in the sky. In places, the stars are in thick streams, like rivers, and he has to remember that every single one of those things is a whole star, bigger than the sun, bigger than anything, except for the Apocalypse going down on a tiny, insignificant planet.

There must be other planets out there. Sam loves to show him NASA's daily photo, usually of a galaxy or some funky thing out there in space that's too far away to really care about. If it's just them, just the blue-green speck called Earth, then what was the point in making the rest of it? There has to be other planets out there, maybe even with life. If there's life out there, do the angels know about it? Or are there a different set of beings responsible for it? Are they at war?

A guy could go nuts from all of it.

"Is this how you pictured the end of the world?" Dean asks against the mouth of his beer, tilting his head to look at Bobby and Sam.

From his place on the first porch stair, Bobby shrugs and takes a swig. "Not really. For one, I thought there'd be less macaroni art."

Sam laughs and Dean grins, and for a moment it's just like old times. Shooting the shit between hunts, talking and drinking, recounting old tales and personal exploits. Some of the stuff Bobby and Dad got up to. It's home.

"Nothin's ever cut and dry," Bobby says with a sigh. "But the war between Heaven and Hell… I'd always assumed that if I lived to see the end of days, it would be. Black and white, good against evil. I'll admit to being surprised that the Metatron's… not playing for the home team, so to speak. Just wish we knew why."

Dean runs his tongue along the glass, catching the faint sheen of perspiration and licking it up, eyes still on the sky. He feels so small out here. There are angels inside making armor and weapons, gearing up for the most convoluted fight in the history of history, and he's staring like a turkey at the sky, feeling tiny and sorry for himself.

"So here we are," Sam murmurs, following Dean's gaze. "At the end of the world."

"Hard to believe." Dean tilts the bottle to catch the last dregs of his beer, then wings the empty bottle out into the darkness. It shatters somewhere, an explosion of sound, familiar from years of Dean being thrown through windows. "Fuck. What am I even doing?"

"You're doin' what's right, idgit," Bobby snaps, face hard in the dim starlight. "Jesus Christ was murdered because Heaven's corrupt as Hell, and you're doing what ought to be done. What no other angel would've done."

He wishes he hadn't thrown the bottle. At least he would've had something to do with his hands. "Raguel would have."

Sam jumps in, "Well, considering that he's been MIA for a long time, I wouldn't bet on it. Or on Gabriel, or on anyone else. Cas's the only one who did anything -- you said so yourself. It took a mud-monkey to step up to the plate."

"I shouldn't have to." He really shouldn't have thrown that bottle. "It shouldn't be my problem."

"But it is. It's all yours now, Dean." Sam shrugs. "Hey, could be worse. We could be hunting your run-of-the-mill werewolf every month. At least this isn't boring."

"Yeah, that's my cue to go back inside. Do you even hear yourself when you speak, Sam?" He closes the door on Sam's laughter, his heart lighter than it had been when he first stepped outside. Raguel's name, bled into the walls, seems to flare when he walks back inside, washing over him in welcome. Nifty.

The kitchen table holds only one occupant now, and Gabriel doesn't even look up at Dean from where he's painstakingly placing elbow macaroni into a tessellation on the back of a paper plate. Dean really wants to kick the leg of the table as hard as he can.

"Don't even think about it," Gabriel sings, head bent over his project. "I'll cut off your feet."

"Well, that's gonna make things awkward."

"We'll get you a nice wheelchair, and you can _roll_ into battle." Gabriel shoves his hand into a Barilla pasta box and comes out with a handful of fusilli, dropping it into a pile. He takes one and sticks it to the outside rim of the plate. "You know, I get why they have crazy people do this in therapy. I haven't been this relaxed since… Probably the fortieth time I killed you. The falling desk was genius, if I do say so myself."

Oh yeah, good times.

Gabriel glances up at him and rolls his eyes before going back to his project. "Don't even give me that look. You don't remember a thing."

"But Sam does." There are times when Dean plugs in an electric razor, and Sam gets this look of bone-chilling fear that sets Dean's teeth on edge. "So, what happened with the Leviathan?"

Gabriel snorts, but his shoulders go stiff. "The weapon used to specifically kill the Leviathan had no effect. Not that we had any reason to kill it, since the only thing it was doing was making waves. Some surfers off of Revere Beach were probably happy, though." A piece of fusilli breaks between his fingers and he reaches for another one. "Bobby started chanting something -- I can't even remember what -- but it stripped the thing of the illusion, and suddenly two-hundred angels were fighting a kelp bed and some sparrows. A trick."

"Wow, bet that stung."

"There was a certain poetic justice to it," Gabriel agrees, "but my tricks always had a point, a lesson. Oh, sure, they're funny as hell, but I've got my reasons. This? This had all of Heaven's power behind it, leading us all on this futile chase. I received word that War had been sighted, but no trace of him could be found, and then Sam told me about your brilliant theory… So, we packed it in and came back here, because once the word got out that we were onto Heaven's little game? It'd be curtains."

Gabriel hunches in on himself, folding up until his shoulders brush his ears, and he looks like a little kid whose mother left him at a sitter's and never came back. "Heaven was never perfect, but it wasn't… it was never this corrupt, subversive thing. When Jesus was around -- man, you would've gotten the biggest kick out of him. He was the funniest soul I'd ever come across, and I'm including myself so you know the guy was a laugh riot. The jokes he knew were epic -- some literally, and they'd take an eternity to tell but you'd be in stitches the entire time, and when he finally would get to the punch line you'd near die of laughter."

Dean purses his lips and thinks of Castiel, who'd considered Jesus to be his one and only friend. "You were close to him?"

"Nah, not as much as your little angel lost. Jesus was always talking about Castiel, how curious he was, how fascinated by everything he was. The littlest angel with the largest capacity for… everything. And Castiel, from what I remember, used to follow him around like a puppy, always ready to perform a new trick or fetch something for him. Sometimes, they'd sit at the edge of the world and just watch. You gotta feel for him, you know, losing so much in such a short time. _And_ picking up emotion along the way? I'm surprised he hasn't cracked and started eating the furniture." Gabriel looks up again, shoulders relaxing, and a large smile breaks out across his face. "Well, he's got you, I guess. Not really a fair trade-off, if you ask me, but to each his own and all that."

"And we'd been so close to having a moment, too," Dean simpers, reaching out and flicking the pile of elbows, scattering them all over the table.

Gabriel groans in annoyance. "Wow, dick move."

"Where'd he go?"

"Upstairs, to bed. Widdle baby was sweepy." Gabriel flashes him a grin of pure, adulterated sin. "Bet he loves your wake up calls, though."

Gross. "Hey, nice chat, Gabe. Let's not ever do it again."

He passes the same two angels from before on his way out, nodding to them as he goes, but he stops in the doorway, curiosity taking its hold. He turns.

"Gabriel?"

"Mm?"

"What's God like?"

Gabriel looks up from his macaroni, confused, brows curved up in uncertainty. "I don't know. Never met Him."

Oh, because that makes sense. "But you're an archangel. Isn't your shtick that you stand before God?"

"No one's ever seen or spoken to God. No one except the Metatron and Raguel. Even the archangels don't have that honor. I could have passed Him a million times on the street and never recognized Him."

Dean stares. "Then how do you know your orders are legit?"

Gabriel holds his gaze for a long moment, his beady eyes dark and solemn, before he looks away, back to his macaroni. "Faith."

"Wow. And look where it got you."

He leaves Gabriel there alone at the kitchen table, macaroni the only thing to keep him company. Let him sit on it, think about how Castiel had been in the same position not too long ago, doubting and fearing that doubt, reevaluating his faith.

Let him be a little bit human for a while.

 

 _There is a carnival. A ferris wheel. Popcorn on the ground. Laughter and the bells of music._

 _The Ferris wheel looms over every ride in all creation, lit up against the sky, slowly turning to a predetermined rhythm. The cars hanging from it sway as they travel around, colored blue and green and yellow and red._

 _He doesn't want to go up, but he has to._

 _The man from before is in the operator's booth, pointing up to the top of the ride. It's up there!_

 _Dean waits in the short line, because no one believes in the Ferris wheel anymore, and it isn't long before he's getting into a car, a blue one. The ride starts, slow and impersonal. He grips the plastic seat._

 _It breaks the pinnacle, and there's a flash of white in between a spoke and the drive rim. There it is!_

 _As he nears it, he gets as close to the edge as he can and reaches out, just missing it, sliding past it for another go-round. At the bottom, the operator smiles and waves as he goes by._

 _He misses it the second time._

 _If you're afraid of the edge, then you'll never get it. The operator waves at him again._

 _The car reaches the top and he steels himself, sticking one leg out of the car to give him some more distance. His heart pounds and he's terribly scared, but everything depends on him grabbing it before the ride is over and someone else does._

 _Holding onto the car, he reaches out again, stretching as far as he can, and closes the tips of his forefinger and middle finger around a white edge, snatching it as the ride bumbles on._

 _He falls back into the car. He has it._

 _He turns it over._

 _It's a list of names._

 _His name is at the bottom, after Jesus Christ's. His is the last on the list._

 _The ride stops and the operator is waiting for him._

 _Do you understand now?_

 _Do you understand, Dean?_


	12. Part Eleven

Dean jerks awake with a high-pitched cry that he'll forever deny he made, because Sam's always lurking around with a camera to capture this kind of shit.

He's in bed. In his bed. He actually doesn't remember much after leaving Gabriel with some food for thought, so he's not quite sure how he got here. He vaguely remembers standing near Becks's and Rose's new angel fanclub, half-listening as Rose described the significance of Harry Potter. He does remember the angel in the hulking, 800-foot tall vessel raise his hand and ask in a voice usually reserved for eight-year olds on Christmas morning, "Does every human receive an owl?"

Staring up blankly at the ceiling, at the familiar cracks and water damage stains, Dean feels something shift and resettle inside him.

He throws the covers back and jumps out of bed, casting around for a shirt. The sheets rustle behind him and he can hear Castiel mutter at his departure, but it's not enough to actually wake the lazy ass.

The Led Zeppelin shirt's going to have to do. The giant Icarus icon emblazoned across his chest has some kind of relevance. He'd share the thought with Castiel, except Castiel doesn't know what Led Zeppelin is, despite all of Dean's attempts at teaching him what proper music is; he still calls it 'the dirigible music'.

He hits the bathroom first, pissing until he can literally feel his bladder constrict in emptiness. There are very few pleasures in life -- good beer, good sex, good friends, not being eaten by a supernatural monster -- but sometimes it's the little things, like taking a good piss.

The floorboards creak beneath his feet, but that doesn't seem to disturb anyone. The angels are still there, lining the stairs and walls, talking quietly or not at all, staring at nothing. A few have their eyes closed, a parody of sleep. Dean can't help but notice the way Becks and Rose are curled up with their angel fan club; Becks is drooling in the lap of an angel wearing the meatsuit of somebody's grandfather, and Rose is snoring against the neck of the giant Harry Potter-loving angel. The other fourteen angels are crowded around them like mother lionesses guarding their cubs. Dean snorts.

At least the kitchen's relatively empty. When he walks in, Mora's pouring herself a cup of coffee, her shoulders drooping with an invisible weight. She looks like she hasn't slept at all.

"Hey," he says quietly so as not to startle her, but she probably heard him wake up. Demons and their crazy superhearing.

She grunts and holds up a finger, gulping down her coffee in two swallows. Dean's own throat aches in sympathy; that shit must be scalding.

"Hey," Mora mutters, pouring another cup and knocking it back just as quickly. She slams the mug down onto the counter like a shot glass and rubs the back of her wrist against her mouth, wiping away any leftover coffee. Her fingers are trembling.

Dean takes a few tentative steps forward until he can rest his hip against the sink. "You okay?"

Mora stares at the back of her hand blankly, looking very small in her rumpled, oversized nightclothes. "Not really. I didn't sleep very well." A weak smile curves her lips. "It's been a long time since I've had to sleep alone."

"How long is 'long'?"

"Seven hundred years, give or take," Mora murmurs, dropping her hand and tipping her chin up. He reads her fear and exhaustion in the bruised skin beneath her eyes. She must have stayed up all night, wired and restless, nerves shot to all hell at the thought of what might be happening to Sariel.

He whistles. "Talk about being shackled together for eternity."

Her eyes roll and then fixate unerringly on his, burning through the layers of bullshit to get to his core. "If you were 'shackled' to your angel for the rest of time would _you_ complain?"

"And Anna?"

Mora stiffens and turns away, going back to the coffeemaker. "Anna believed herself entitled to something that wasn't hers. Don't worry about it. It was a blip."

"Haven't you had enough?" Dean asks, watching with barely-disguised disgust as she moves to load the coffee maker with more grounds. "I mean, how many cups have you had already?"

Mora dumps the grounds into the filter and then tosses the plastic scoop into the sink, grabbing the coffee pot and running it under the tap. She fills it to the brim and then pours the water into the chamber. "It's Heaven. How could they do this?"

He's officially freaked out now. The last thing they need is a demon teetering on the edge between crying a river and fucking insane. Sariel'd better get her ass back ASAP.

"They kick us out for wanting things to be a little different and then they turn around and pull this bullshit? Where is the justice in any of that?" Mora shoves the empty pot under the drip and presses the button to heat the water. "Where's the justice?"

Dean glances into the living room. "Uh, crammed in the house? We're taking care of it, remember?"

"We shouldn't have to!" She shouts, whirling around and fixing him with red-rimmed, exhaustion-smudged eyes. "We shouldn't have to!"

"Shut the hell up! My brother's trying to sleep!" He hisses back, making a cutting motion with his hand.

She stares, lips parting. "They cast me down! They cast us all down for even daring to think for ourselves, and this -- The Metatron is the corrupt one, not me! Not Lucifer! And yet, who rotted in the bowels of Hell for eons?!"

"I did!" Dean chokes out, heart wrenching in his chest. For a second he thinks he's totally having a heart attack. And wouldn't that just be perfect? Kick the bucket right before the fight. "We all did because of that bastard! Is that what you want to hear? Fine! You're right: we shouldn't have to. But guess what? We have to. So suck it up, drink your coffee, and wait for your girlfriend to come back. Bitching about it's not going to solve a thing."

Hurt and anger are at war on Mora's face, but to Dean's relief she shuts her trap and looks away. He counts it as a win, but it's a pretty hollow victory.

"Please keep the noise level to a minimum," a new voice says, and they both turn to the hulking angel in the doorway. "Rose Stanton and Beckett Lassiter are sleeping."

"Seriously? Her name's Beckett?" Dean can't help but ask.

Mora waves off the angel's answering frown, an apology splashed all over her face. "Yes. I'm sorry. We'll be --"

The coffee mug slips from Mora's hand and slams into the floor tiles, exploding over Dean's bare feet in ceramic, sound, and leftover coffee. He jumps back in surprise.

"Nice going, butterfingers! _I'm_ not cleaning it --" He looks up at Mora and stops. She drags in staccato breaths, beads of sweat dotting her suddenly pale face, her eyes wide and unseeing. If Dean were to pass her looking like that on the street, he'd say she was drunk, or high, or just plain batshit nuts. Maybe even possessed. And then he'd continue on to wherever he'd been going, but he'd keep an eye on the local paper for the duration of his stay. Now, in this context, she just looks desperately terrified.

"What?" Dean asks, worried. Oh crap, if the war's already started they are so screwed. "What is it?!"

The angel in the doorway is gripping the frame tightly, the wood splintering beneath his sausage fingers. "It is quiet."

Voices start rising in the other room, all of the angels murmuring and then talking and then shouting, escalating into a fucking hysteria that Dean really can't deal with without having had some form of caffeine. He glares at Mora for drinking it all. The coffeemaker won't have another pot ready for, like, an hour.

"It is quiet," the angel says again, urgently.

"It was! What the hell is going on?!" Dean shouts, trying to grab Mora's attention by waving his hand in front of her face. She doesn't react; she's not even tracking.

"Dean."

He turns around to see Castiel standing there, sleep-rumpled but wide-eyed and alert. There's something in his gaze that looks too much like fear and Dean can't find the words to demand an explanation. They stick in his throat and block his airway, leaving him choking like a goddamn pussy.

"Heaven has made its move." Castiel grimaces, like the words physically hurt him to say. He opens his mouth to continue, then closes it, and looks down at the floor.

Sam walks into the kitchen -- or doesn't walk so much as Gabriel pushes him past the monster hulking in the doorway -- and turns a devastated, shocked gaze onto Dean. His lips are quivering. "Dean -- they… Hell's gone."

That makes so much sense. "What?"

"Massacred. Slaughtered. Wiped out. Blown away." Gabriel surveys the room, as serious as Dean's ever seen him. His vessel is a total short-ass, but somehow in this moment he's tall, looming, mouth pinched tight in rage and loss. He doesn't look like any of the baby-faced boys in armor that the books all claim is Gabriel; he's terrible and amazing to witness. There's a force around him, all hidden lightning and tempest, that marks him for what he really is.

Dean feels very small and unimportant compared to Gabriel, which he doesn't like at all.

"Wait, but --" Dean's trying and failing to catch up. "How can it be gone? That's ridiculous!"

"It is silent, Dean," Castiel says wearily. "The screaming -- a great hush has descended. I can't hear or feel anything. It's as if… it simply disappeared."

Sam swallows hard, mouth opening at the end to release a noise that sounds like it's punched out of him. "What about all the people down there? The, uh --"

Mora drags in a shuddery breath and rakes her hands through her hair. "Billions of souls just -- winked out of existence. Poof. Like they were never there."

Gabriel pauses, stares at Mora as if seeing her for the first time, and then looks to Dean. "Two seconds."

He blips out.

Dean stares at the space Gabriel had occupied as if it'll give him an answer or two, but it doesn't. It's just scuffed tiled flooring. Distantly, he knows he probably looks a bit spacey, but he takes a second to step away from himself and try to categorize just what it is he's feeling. It's not fear or relief that simmers in his belly, fanning out into his limbs until it's overtaken him.

Hell's gone.

Every time he thinks he might have a handle on whatever his emotions are, they dance away and leave him reaching out for nothing. For all intents and purposes, it'd been his home for forty years. He'd been gainfully employed for a decade. He'd met people, learned about their lives, their sins, and had been forced to share his own. There isn't much to differentiate the experience from a life on the Mortal Plane, except there's a distinct lack of public disembowelment and torture. But it had been his home, and now it's gone.

"Dean."

Castiel tentatively places his hand on Dean's shoulder, fingers just brushing the scar on his bicep, and squeezes lightly, grounding him.

"Yeah," Dean mutters, because there really isn't anything to say. In the living room, the angel brigade is getting antsy, making noise about whatever's going on downstairs.

Sam steps forward, expression twisted somewhere between sympathy and uncertainty, but not pity -- Winchesters don't do pity. He opens his mouth to say something, probably to ask if Dean needs to take a moment to himself away from prying eyes, but Gabriel appears in a rush of mountain air.

"Well," Gabriel says, falsely cheerful, his expression tight with sorrow. "That's the game, kiddies."

"It's gone." Dean feels sick. "Where are all the -- the souls?"

They'd all been in Hell for a reason, but to wipe them out entirely… It's somehow worse than being tortured for eternity. He's not sure why that is, but it is. He'd rather be tormented for all time than not have been at all. Nothingness is a scary concept.

Gabriel turns an unimpressed glare on him. "I don't know where they are. I would've stopped to ask, but -- gosh, the party was already over! I know how to clear a room, I tell you."

"That doesn't explain where all the souls went!" Mora explodes suddenly, rounding on Gabriel like he doesn't have the power to completely atomize her. "Where are the souls?!"

"In Heaven, to be used in the fight against us."

Confused, Dean turns his head.

Oh, of fucking course.

"Nice to see you have a life outside the theme park," Dean says to the carnival operator from his dreams, and Raguel smiles. At Raguel's side, Sariel blinks tiredly at him, her hair oily and face ruddy with dirt and what looks like dried tracks of water.

"I apologize for my tardiness," Raguel says brightly, without a care in the world. "But I had found myself trapped in the stoma of a rhododendron leaf in Uttrakhand, and Sariel was kind enough to find me."

"Raguel," Castiel whispers, immediately bowing his head in reverence. Dean frowns and knocks him with a shoulder.

"Dude, cut it out."

"Dean is right, Castiel. You, of all, have no reason to bow to me. If anything, I should be bowing to you as the one who saved our Lord." Raguel is smiling, but it's not creepy like the Metatron. It's right. It's genuine, and it puts Dean immediately at ease. The dude's good people, probably hilarious after a beer or two. He wouldn't mind kicking back when this is all over, Castiel and Sam at his sides, chilling on Bobby's front porch with Raguel, splitting a forty between them.

Except, wait.

He turns to Castiel, surprised. "You saved the Lord? Who the hell else have you been rescuing in your off-time?"

Something brushes against his shoulder, and Sam's lips twitch as he stares down Raguel and Sariel. Sariel looks like she's two seconds from falling over. Discreetly, Mora walks over and takes her by the arm, leading her into the living room to sit down. They follow Mora and Sariel out of the kitchen, and Dean watches as an angel vacates a place on Bobby's couch for her. Sariel collapses into the seat, head falling back and eyes closing. Gabriel forces another angel out of its seat, sitting next to her and watching the proceedings in uncharacteristic silence, absently placing a hand on her leg, a gesture of familial comfort. Mora perches on the arm of the couch next to her, her hand resting on Sariel's head.

There's a creak from the floorboards in the doorway as Bobby steps into the living room, wary and armed with a well-concealed gun. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Sam give a quick shake of his head and Bobby relaxes.

When Dean brings his attention back to Raguel, he jerks a thumb at Castiel. "Who'd he save and why hasn't he been rewarded yet?"

Raguel smiles disarmingly, and something about it makes Dean's stomach bottom out. This is what he's been waiting for since day one: the other shoe is about to drop. It's about to come crashing, any minute now.

"Do you know how Heaven was created?"

Dean's not sure if the question is directed at him or to the room at large, but either way, he has no fucking clue. "Dude, can we talk about Hell for a second? If everyone's in Heaven --"

"Indulge me," Raguel interrupts. "Do you know how Heaven was created?"

"God just flipped a light switch, right?"

Raguel grins, amused. "An apt metaphor, if crude. There was nothing, and then there was everything. But creation is only as good as its maker. And that maker is gone."

The room inhales, ready to scream, but Raguel holds up a hand and everyone falls silent again.

"I said _that_ maker. The one who set things in motion has been gone longer than time has existed. But I was there, when the Maker breathed life into me, into Metatron, and called us angel. I was there when the Maker set the stars and the planets, when the Maker spun blue and green and made this world. And I was there when the Maker left.

"But before the Maker left, thought was made into Law, and the Sovereignty of the realm called Βασιλεία τῶν Ουρανῶν was decided, for a new creation was to be born and they would inherit the Throne."

Oh, for the love of fuck, what is with angels and their need for vague, cryptic speeches? He had enough of it when he first met Castiel, and then with the rest of the angels and demons he'd come across, all spouting off about prophecies and Righteous Men and Lucifer and whatever random bullshit they could confuse him with.

"Buddy!" Dean shouts, echoing in the living room, and Castiel stiffens against him in warning. "Just get to the point! I feel like I've been listening to you talk since I was eleven years old."

Raguel doesn't strike him down for insolence, like he probably should. Instead, he grins and laughs a little, the corners of his vessel's eyes crinkling.

"I've been waiting for you, Dean. No beating around the bush with you, no pleasantries, just tell it like it is."

Raguel holds out his hand, and the white piece of paper that Dean had rescued from the Ferris wheel appears. He holds it up for the entire room to see.

"When the Maker forged Heaven, it was in preparation for those who would someday rule it. Seven names, all predestined for greatness, were put on a List. From the moment Humanity was created, I knew all that would assume the Throne once the Maker departed."

Sam jumps on it immediately. "Wait a second! You're saying -- You're saying that _God_ isn't a being, but a position!"

Raguel turns his head and smiles at Sam. "Smart boy. You are the brother, yes? You are very tall."

"Would someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?!" This is getting ridiculous. No one is saying what needs to be said, because he's trying to wrap his mind around what Raguel's implying, but it's too big. He can feel his mind shattering under the strain of it. "Okay, so God is a position -- what does that have to do with killing Jesus?!"

Raguel hands him the List, and Dean glances over it once more. Like in his dream, his and Jesus's names are the last two on the paper. Jesus's, like all the ones before that Dean can't read, is crossed out.

"Jesus was not the Messiah," Raguel says softly, and out of the corner of his eye Dean sees Gabriel sit up straight. "Jesus was God."

Castiel lets out a low noise, the moan of a wounded animal that still has some fight left in it, and Dean moves a little closer. He doesn't touch, though. He knows that feeling, the one of shock and horror and confusion and helplessness, how it feels like you're being stretched to the breaking point, a rubber band pulled until it starts coming apart somewhere in the middle. When he gets like that, he doesn't want anyone to lay a hand on him, too hypersensitive and too skittish to not accidentally hurt someone, and that's just him. An angel in that position would be devastating.

"How could he be killed, then?" Gabriel pipes up from the couch, eyes hard, obviously struggling to accept this new reality and move on. "If he was -- He was God. How?"

Raguel presses his lips together, smile fading. He looks at his shoes, a pair of worn-in sandals, his tanned toes wiggling absently. His vessel was probably one of those new-age hippies. "He was at the end of His reign, and thus the power He had been imbued with was fading. He was becoming mortal again, and His soul was vulnerable. Jesus was days from Naming his successor. A successor that the Metatron tried to keep from taking the Throne, so he himself could assume power."

There's a gasp behind him. It's Becks. He can't turn around to ask what her problem is, because Raguel's captured his gaze and refuses to let it go.

"The successor was already ingrained in prophecy; a man touched by constant tragedy, shaped by it, and yet still retaining a pure soul to rival almost all on Earth."

No.

"A man fighting against the creatures of Hell, alongside his brother and kin, for whom he spared death by descending into the Pit. A Righteous Man."

The way Sam's staring at him is starting to scare him, because he can't read the expression on Sam's face, and he knows every expression that Sam has ever used. He doesn't know this one.

Raguel nods. "In order to keep the man from taking his rightful place as God, the Metatron dispatched an angel into the Pit to eliminate the problem, never taking into consideration that the angel might disobey orders and instead lift the man up."

"So he killed Jesus before the… successor could be Named," Sariel says quietly from the couch, head now resting against Mora's side. Her eyes slide open and fixate on Dean with unerring accuracy.

"Before he could Name Dean as God," Sam fills in the blank for them, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth. "Dean is… Dean is…"

Raguel smiles, but it's Bobby, hoarse and heavy, that finishes the sentence. "God."

There's a high-pitched static noise that fills his head, building up into a TV blizzard that damn near whites out everything. It's too big. It's just too big and he can't fucking deal. Someone's hyperventilating, far away, and distantly he realizes that it's him. His vision is too blurry to distinguish features on anyone, but he recognizes Sam's hulking frame as he tries to reach out to Dean.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!!" He bends over, hands gripping his head, and tries to focus. But he can't, because he's God. He's God.

 _God._

That is such bullshit. This whole thing is just one more way to fuck with his life, to see how many times he can crack until he shatters completely. Up until a few months ago, he hadn't even believed in God, any god, and now he _is_ \-- "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this isn't real. This is just --"

He can't finish the sentence. He's crying. In front of other people. Any other time, he'd kill himself out of embarrassment, but he can't even care about it now, because he's suddenly The Guy. In charge of everything. Of the human race, the planet, every single star in space, and everything in between.

The guy that made the List must have been cracked out of his mind, thinking Dean Winchester, some fucked-up human manwhore with fraudulent credit cards and an unholy love for his car, would be a good candidate for the job. The Job.

"I couldn't keep a goldfish alive," he gasps, face wet and cold. "How can you even expect me --"

It's just too big. It's too big to handle.

But.

But he lifts his head and finds the gaze of the whole room -- an entire garrison of angels, of Sariel and Mora, of Becks and Rose, of Gabriel, of Raguel, of Bobby, of Sam, of Castiel -- on him, reverent and solemn, waiting. Waiting on him to suck it up and deal. Waiting for him to tell them what to do.

 _Te nombro, Dean Winchester._

I name you, Dean Winchester.

It takes a few minutes, but he manages to wrangle his breathing into something a little more manageable, and a few more minutes and he can see clearly again. He's hot, jittery, but he shoves it down until he can't feel it anymore. Until he can look his brother in the eye and not feel like he's going to explode at the tears on Sam's cheeks.

Okay.

"I need five minutes."

Raguel says nothing, simply nods, and Dean knows why he got the name 'Friend of God', because only a real friend wouldn't ask if he were okay. Because he's not, but he has to be. This isn't about him anymore. This is about everything else.

"Five minutes," he says loudly, voice cracking. He clears his throat and looks around the room, making sure to meet everyone's eyes. "Five minutes, and then we gear up for the biggest fucking coup d'état that Heaven's ever seen. Just… give me five minutes."

Dean takes a step back, then practically bolts out of the room. He takes the stairs two at a time and reaches the bathroom in the nick of time, dropping to his knees and puking up everything he's ever eaten. He thinks he sees some pop rocks in there from when he was nine. Once everything's out of his system, he dry-heaves for a little while, tears rolling down his cheeks while his stomach rebels without any kind of weaponry.

He falls back onto his ass, coughing weakly, and sits back with a wheeze. And then he just drifts. Just floats away, filled with helium and cut from his strings.

A strong, gentle hand presses him back by his forehead, and he's lowered to lay in a warm lap. The hand slips down to cover his eyes, shielding him from the after image of the bathroom, and he exhales. Safe. Tired. But mostly safe. Small, and safe, for the time being.

"The first time I saw you, there was a girl on the Rack, and you were cutting into her. I had never heard such screams before, not in my forty year search, or on Earth, or in Heaven. She was so small, so fragile, and I did nothing. She pleaded for me to save her, to take her back to her mother so she could tell her she was sorry and she would never pick up matches again. And I did nothing.

"You removed her limbs, leaving behind a torso only, and then removed her insides, taking such care not to damage them. She was no longer screaming, but still. And once it was over, you took the shell of her body and placed her on… something soft. And when you gazed upon me, you released a sigh and said 'finally'; you knew the reason for my visit, for the weapon in my hand.

"After what you had done to that child's soul, I should not have hesitated the way I did. I should have done my duty and returned promptly to Heaven where I would await new orders, or be sent to the front lines to aid my brothers and sisters. But… I looked. I looked at you, into you, and found the brightest soul I had ever been privy to, and I wept of it. Never before had I been so close to that which I was. Never before had I felt so blessed, so sacred and precious. Even in the deepest reaches of Hell, I had found something Holy. I had found you, and I could not lift my blade."

Castiel stops speaking for a long moment, saying nothing about the steady stream of tears beneath his palm and fingers, and Dean just continues to float. Until Castiel grabs hold of one of his strings and gently brings him back.

"And when I could not lift my blade, I decided to simply lift you. I cut the chains that bound you, took you into my grasp, and flew until I could no longer hear their cries. Only yours, begging me to save them instead. Fighting me every moment, thrashing so I could not fly straight. Even when I remade your body from the earth and sky, you cursed and hit and bit at me.

"I pushed you into slumber so that you could continue to heal, back down into the ground so your sleep would be uninterrupted, and I had to look. One last time, I had to know if what I had seen in the Pit had not been… folly. But, no. Your soul was blinding, brighter than even Heaven itself, and I knew that I would love you until I was no more."

Castiel's thumb strokes a slow, hypnotic path across his temple, the rest of his hand still hiding Dean's eyes.

"You are coarse, and rude. You care too much and respect far too little. You never think before you act or make a judgment, and your instincts are not as sharp as you think they are. You treat me like I am a child, like a man, and refuse to acknowledge that I am neither. I am disgusted by the foods you put into your mouth, but charmed by that same portal. You are imperfect, and the most beautiful creature ever made. I do not know why you were chosen at the dawn of creation, and yet I know exactly why. You, Dean Winchester. There could be no other candidate."

He shivers, and Castiel withdraws his hand. Dean dazedly opens his eyes and sheds one more tear at the wobbly, awed, lovestruck smile on Castiel's face.

"Your five minutes are up."

Dean allows Castiel to help him to his feet, and he stands on shaky legs, feeling wrung-out and empty. New. Cleansed. Ready to be filled with something bigger, something more than he ever thought possible. The arm Castiel wraps around the small of his back is unyielding, completely certain in the way that Castiel always is, and he's absurdly grateful for it. So much that he stops them from leaving the bathroom, just for a moment, and presses his face into the warmth of Castiel's neck. Just to breathe in the sharp, clear mountain air and to revel in the fact that Castiel is all his. That Castiel will love him until he's no more.

"Dean?"

They can do this. He can do this.

Dean pulls away and smiles at Castiel, big and painful and beautiful. "I'm good, Cas. It's big, and it's stupid, but if anyone's going to have the chance to kick the Metatron's ass it's going to be me."

The corners of Castiel's lips twitch, then broaden until Castiel's full-out grinning like it's going to split his face in two.

They're beaming like idiots at each other, unable to stop and look away, or even make it down the stairs until Gabriel shouts up, "So, if you're done fucking in the bathroom like a couple of heroin junkies, you want to come downstairs so we can straighten this mess out? Hey, thanks!"

Castiel helps him to his feet and is about to pull away when Dean's hand closes around Castiel's wrist, pulling him close. He captures Castiel's lips in a rough kiss, the skin of Castiel's cheeks forever clean-shaven and frozen in time, is soft against his own when he angles their heads and deepens it. It needs to be savored, memorized, because the minute they leave the room everything is going to change. And he needs this, just in case.

Castiel is the one that breaks it, hand cupping Dean's cheek and bringing their foreheads together, just for a moment, just a little reprieve before he opens the door.

 _I love you. Here, at the end of everything, I love you._

"Are you reading my mind, Cas?" He nuzzles Castiel's cheek, dragging the tip of his nose across the smooth swell of skin.

"Yes," Castiel breathes and tilts his head to brush his mouth against Dean's. "I am."

Good.

With a breath, Dean steps back, away, and opens the door, holding Castiel's gaze all the while. Castiel stands there, flushed and rumpled, his dress shirt off and clad in only the undershirt and his slacks, confused and exhausted and the most beautiful thing Dean's ever seen.

"I love you." Dean stops, licks his lips, and swallows. "I just… wanted you to hear it."

Castiel smiles wanly, but genuinely. "I knew already, but thank you. For saying it."

Heart pounding, suddenly bashful, Dean drops his gaze but not his grin. "Cas, shut up."

They leave the room and take the stairs together, Dean first and Castiel a step behind. They're going to have to change that; Castiel shouldn't be trailing him like a dog after its master. This isn't Heaven anymore; he gets to walk with the grown-ups now.

"Gabriel, get yourself some fucking tact," Dean snarls, but it's all in good humor. He can't even keep the smile off his face. He must look fucking deranged. "And you have to do what I say, because I'm God."

Sam is there to meet him and Castiel at the bottom of the stairs, smiling widely with relief, and Dean doesn't even fight the hug that he's pulled into, just wraps his arms around Sam as tightly as he can and holds on. When they break apart, Sam grins at him. "Don't think this means that I'm going to call you 'My Lord' or anything."

"Bitch, that's disrespect. You're disrespecting God. How do you even sleep at night? Say five Hail Marys and fifty Our Dean Who Art So Awesomes."

Bobby hugs him, too, then slaps him upside the head. "I ain't bowing to you, idgit. And I certainly ain't goin' to church, either."

Dean snorts. "Not even if I make all the churches into bars? That's my first royal decree: worship starts at 5 o'clock, wherever you are. Drink this beer, for it is my blood, and eat this delicious cherry pie, for it is my body and I fucking say so. I think I might have some fun with this."

Sam rolls his eyes and punches him in the shoulder. "What the hell was the Maker thinking? We're all doomed."

Raguel is waiting for them in the living room still, Gabriel's garrison flanking him. He's smiling, too. Fuck, everyone's smiling. All that's missing is some weed and Three Dog Night singing 'Joy to the World'.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," Raguel says, and Dean refrains from saying 'but you did so well before, why stop now?' He has willpower. "But you are not God yet."

Sam looks surprised. "But he's on the List."

Gabriel walks into the room, the List in hand. He looks at it like it's a fucking laundry list, but the reverent way his fingers press into it tells a different story. "Except Homeboy didn't actually Name Dean."

"And in order to be instated, Dean must actually sit on the Throne," Raguel adds solemnly.

Dean throws up his hands and stalks away, because this is just the story of his life. As soon as something starts going right, something has to come along and fuck it up. He spins around and shrugs dramatically. "And the Throne's in Heaven."

"Duh." Gabriel rolls his eyes. "So, either we fight our way through Heaven's armies and get you to the Throne, or we sit around with our thumbs up our asses and wait for the Metatron's attack dogs to come after us."

No. "No. No, we're not just gonna lie down. I could care less about being on the Throne, but there's no way I'm letting that smiling _fuck_ get away with this. He tried to have me destroyed in Hell! He killed Jesus! He started a fucking war! I'm not letting him win this. So we bring the fight to them. I want to storm Heaven and let everyone know that their fearless leader is a murderer and a -- the guy who kills a king so he can take control?"

"An usurper?" Castiel suggests, and Dean points at him gratefully.

"Yeah! That." He surveys the room and puts it to them. "So? Who's mad as hell and doesn't want to take it anymore?"

When he doesn't get an immediate response, he doesn't panic. When he doesn't get a response at all, _then_ he starts to panic. He's that kid in school who doesn't say anything the whole year, then blurts out something he thinks is totally genius and spends the last few weeks of school getting jeered at by the other kids. Fuck, this is awkward.

He turns to Castiel, hoping for some kind of back-up. "Cas? What about you? You with me?"

Castiel stares at him for a long moment, blue eyes turned gray stone, not giving anything away. He's not the lover he'd brought to orgasm, and he's not the bathroom confessor who proclaimed his love for Dean. He's not the angel that pulled him out, and he's not the man named Jimmy Novak. Dean doesn't recognize this thing in front of him.

Finally, Castiel steps away from Dean and faces the room at large.

"I am not nearly as old as many of you, and I have not experienced many of the things you have. I know I have little right to speak in the face of your accomplishments and rank, but I have seen what Humanity is capable of. I know you are hesitant to rebel for them, to make them your cause, but I know our faith is not misplaced. There is no one more suited to hold absolute dominion than Dean Winchester, who I Name."

Dean's mouth goes dry as Castiel turns to face him, stopped cold at the tears running down Castiel's cheeks, dripping over the smiling mouth that Dean had kissed not hours ago.

"I Name you, Dean Winchester."

"I Name you, Dean Winchester," Bobby announces, about as dainty as a sack of bricks to the back of the head. He comes to stand to Dean's right.

Sam tosses an arm across his shoulders and pulls him in tightly. "I Name you, Dean Winchester."

Sariel stands and smiles. "I Name you, Dean Winchester."

"I Name you, Dean Winchester." Mora nods at him, sliding her arm through Sariel's and twining their fingers together.

There's a loud displacement of air and Dean turns, startled, as Raguel's wings snap open, two lines of electricity that branch into ten more. Raguel, with his stupid sandals and soft, disarming smile, bows his head in deference. "I Name you, Dean Winchester."

Gabriel makes a face, like he was just forced to smell his own fart. "Really? Do I have to? Fine, but I can't even tell you how much I know I'll regret this." But he's grinning. "I Name you, Dean Winchester. I guess."

Becks and Rose rise together, flanked by their fan club, and beam at him. Rose even waves.

"I Name you, Dean Winchester."

"I Name you, Dean Winchester."

One by one, the angels of Gabriel's garrison step forward and pledge their loyalty to him, some bowing before him, some kneeling, some comfortable enough not to show any other outward sign of respect, but it's enough. It's more than enough. It's overwhelming.

It's everything.

They're going to win.


	13. Interlude

The plan is to get Dean to the Throne. There's nothing else, except that. At any cost. And while Dean wishes they had something a little more organized, like an _actual_ plan, he has nothing wrong with the simple piece of shit they've got.

Gabriel's angels are all fitted with armor, slotted over their souls but not actually on their vessels, protected from most kinds of wounds except the ones that count. Kind of like Kevlar. It'll stop a bullet at long range, but at close range you're still screwed. They were nice enough to fit all the humans in the room with the same exact stuff, except it's visible and fits over their clothing, so they look like a bunch of extras from that stupid _Lord of the Rings_ movie.

Over by the fireplace, Sariel slings her arms around Mora's waist and kisses her. Dean bites down the wolf-whistle that rises up. Habit.

"The Throne is surrounded by ruins in the holiest place in Heaven. To find it, just keep going." Raguel nods to Dean, and Dean tries to remember what the Parthenon looks like. It's a Greek building thing, so pillars. He's looking for pillars. "And I have something for you that might help."

Dean forces himself to stand still as Raguel lays his hands over Dean's chest and _pushes_ , liquid heat carving its way into Dean's bones until he has to break away from Raguel's touch. Fucking ow! "The hell was that?!"

"Just a little spell. It should hide you from every angel in existence… except me. And the Metatron."

"Well, then what good is it?! If I need to slip past this guy, then why don't you give me something a little stronger? Maybe carve it into my dick." Dean searches for Castiel among the angels, but can't see him. Or Sam. That doesn't sit well with him. He needs to see them, to talk to them before the doors open and they rush into the fray.

Raguel shakes his head, solemn and cool, the very first angel in existence. "The Metatron and I are equally matched in power and ability. What I can do, so can he. But you have an advantage; no other angel will be able to see you, and therefore they cannot alert the Metatron to your whereabouts."

It's the best he's going to get, so he nods and hopes his uncertainty doesn't show. "Thanks, Raguel."

"It is my job," Raguel says with a shrug, smiling.

Dean snorts. "Dude, you want to trade?"

Raguel looks horrified at the very mention of it, like he just caught Dean fucking his mother. "No angel would ever -- We were created to serve God, not -- No. Never."

"But… dude, you've been there for every schmuck that's been in the hot seat. You'd probably do a better job than anyone else --"

"That is enough," Raguel says sternly, backing away and saving Dean the awkward duty of dismissing him. Talk about touching a nerve.

Whoever the Maker was, he was a total dick. Not allowing angels to sit on the Throne? That's about as unfair as it gets, shackling them into servitude, forced to cater to the Word of a human. Only humans on the Throne. That's bullshit. If it had been up to Dean, no human would have been allowed anywhere near the Throne. He's seen what humans in positions of power on Earth do.

He finds Castiel and Sam in the hall, standing by the front door with Bobby. It doesn't look like they're saying much, which is okay with him, because there really isn't much that needs to be said now. Saying goodbye will only make things harder and they don't need anything weighing on them when they storm the gates.

Coming up next to Castiel, he slips an arm around Castiel's waist and exhales. Bobby raises an eyebrow and Sam grins.

"I so called this," Sam says. Dean rolls his eyes.

"So, you bought the booze for our victory celebration, right, Bobby?" He waggles his eyebrows at Bobby, who laughs and shakes his head.

"Y'think I'm made of fucking money? You've been clearing me out of house and home for years. Time you bought your own booze, you cheapskate. And none of that Busch crap you like. Buy some real beer."

Sam smirks. "I was going to call some hookers, but looks like you're all set over there."

Dean flips him off, but tightens his hold on Castiel. "You wouldn't even know what to say to a hooker, let alone have one's number. Maybe one day they'll drop and I'll explain the whole birds and bees thing."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

"I didn't know birds and bees were related to prostitution," Castiel says, obviously confused, and Dean cracks up.

Gabriel takes the opportunity to step into the hall, his entire garrison behind him, all of them stone-faced and tense, at the ready. Gabriel's munching on a candy bar, mouth smeared with chocolate. He grins and gestures to the angels behind him. "So, we're ready whenever you are."

He's as ready as he's ever going to be. No time like the present to incite a full-scale regime change. And to think his third grade teacher didn't believe he'd amount to anything. Suck on this, bitch.

"Where's my herald?"

Sariel pushes her way to the front through the sea of angels, baring her teeth when one of them protests her rude treatment. "Keep your pants on. _Please_." Her lips are puffy and a little wet.

Dean grins. "Now that's one way to say 'good luck'."

"Bite me," she snaps, then smoothes out her shirt. "Okay. When I open the door, we're going to be right at the gates. Dean? Bank left as soon as you're through and keep going until you see the marble. Everyone else, weapons ready. Raguel?"

Raguel appears beside Sariel and nods. "I think we are all set. Dean, any final words before we go?"

He surveys his army, his rag-tag team of misfits, with pride and pumps the air with his fist. "All right, gang. Let's kick some _fucking_ ass!"

"Thus spake the Lord," Sam mutters.


	14. Part Twelve

Whenever someone mentioned Heaven's gates, or every time Bob Dylan's sheriff crooned about knocking on Heaven's door, Dean had been under the impression that it was a metaphor. Hell, up until Castiel kicked down some barn doors, he was pretty sure that Heaven wasn't actually a place, never mind the kind of place that had gates.

But Bobby's door opens, and they are awash in light. Dean lifts an arm to shield his eyes, because holy shit, that's bright, and when his eyes adjust, he's standing in front of two gigantic gates.

Huh. "So, Sariel," he says with a grin, because _Heaven's Gates_. They're even pearly. "Do we knock?"

Sariel steps forward, next to him, and -- whoa.

She still looks human, and yet not human at all. The outline of her body is smudged with light, humming placidly with pure energy, and her features keep shifting. For a second, she looks like Sara Campbell and then suddenly her entire face collapses into white-gold smoke, then reconstructs itself to look like Sara. The angelic armor he'd been assured he couldn't see on the Mortal Plane is now shining brilliantly, Enochian carved into her breastplate and across the sweep of her shoulders.

He turns to Castiel and sucks in a breath.

There's so much more there, more than just smudged outlines and armor. The face that stares back at him isn't Jimmy Novak's but he knows it so well that it could be. The mouth that he's kissed and never kissed at all because it doesn't exist curves up and smiles at him.

"Dean," Castiel says, and it sounds like _song_.

Sam curses right behind Dean, at his shoulder. "So… this is what angels look like. I mean, really look like."

"To a point," Sariel says, her voice vibrating and echoing on a million different frequencies. "Your minds are still tethered to the human realm and therefore cannot comprehend our true forms completely. However, Heaven can compensate to some degree."

"What she means is, you can sort of see us without the risk of burning your faces off," Gabriel translates cheerfully. He sounds epic, like being right in the apex of a thunderstorm, yet somehow retains that douchey air about him.

Mora -- Belial, now, he supposes -- moves to stand next to Sariel. Her eyes are blacker than night, and like the angels, her outline is smudged, but it's oily and dark, thick and cloying and sinuous like cigarette smoke. Belial cocks her head and glances to where Moloch and Mammon are, their angel-ganking swords glinting in anticipation. Moloch doesn't look happy; Dean can't blame him.

Swallowing, Dean turns and faces his friends, his army, his -- fuck, his people, and then looks up into Sam's face, pushing past the fear and the mind-numbing responsibility resting on all of their shoulders to wrap him in tightest hug ever.

Sam exhales shakily and coils his arms around Dean, squeezing hard enough to make his ribs creak in protest, and mutters, "All you have to do is sit your lazy ass down. _I_ actually have to do the hard part."

"Fuck you." He laughs and chokes down something hard and jagged, like a sob. "Don't you dare get killed."

"Yeah, because the first thing I was planning to do was _walk_ into a sword." But Sam holds him a little tighter anyway.

Satisfied, Dean releases Sam and steps back, moving to Castiel next. At the risk of exploding, he doesn't hug Castiel, but he does move close enough that he can feel the hum of Castiel's body, feel the searing pressure of him.

"You protect him at all costs," Dean whispers. He's not going to be able to do jack shit unless he knows that someone's going to be watching Sam's back, and the only person he'd trust besides Bobby to watch out for his baby brother is Castiel.

Castiel seems to understand. "To the death."

If it comes to that. Oh, Christ, who is he even kidding? Of course it's going to come to that. He's never been much of an endurance runner, more of a sprinting kind of guy, so he'll definitely tire out before he even hopes to reach the Parthenon place. And the Metatron will come and beat him to death with sticks.

Whatever. He's doing to do his damnedest to park his ass on that Throne, so help him -- Him. Wow. Weird.

Shaking it off, he spins and shoots Bobby a grin, opening his arms wide. "How about it, Bobby?"

"Don't even try it," Bobby grumbles, but he's grinning back, and Dean can see the glint of a fight in his eyes. He's armed to the teeth, angel-banishing sigils all over his body, palms soaked in blood, oil painted over them to keep them fresh. "If you're done with the Lifetime moment, boy?"

"Bobby, mi amigo, what do you know about Lifetime?" Gabriel rumbles, all cheeky thunderclaps. "Well, kids?"

Something huge and indomitable moves behind Sariel, reaching out with a blindingly-bright limb to grasp her thin, light-smudged shoulder. It takes Dean a second to realize that mass of light and energy and sound is Raguel. This is the dude after whom all the stars were made.

Raguel stands next to Sariel and places her hand on a thin, light-smudged shoulder. "Sariel, are you ready?"

There's a sudden boom so loud that it scares the everloving shit out of him, and he spins around, watching as the gates slowly slide open, spilling light and mist outward at them. Sam steps a little closer to Dean, tied together by all the history between them, and Castiel moves to his other side, something sharp and entirely devastating in his hand.

"Oh," Sariel purrs, all rumbly amusement, and if she were completely human she'd be rolling her shoulders languidly. "I was born ready."

Sam smirks and tightens his grip on the sword that one of the angels had given him this morning, tripping all over herself at the thought of bestowing a gift unto the brother of the Lord, or something.

Sariel leads them through the gates, stepping confidently past the pearl doors and not stopping until all of their little misfit army is in. Dean stands next to her and squints, looking around.

It's white. It's an awful lot of white. In fact, there isn't anything there _except_ white. A void stretches out in all directions, no floors or walls or even a horizon; it's like someone just erased everything and left. Yet somehow they're standing on what feels like firm ground and _not_ floating off into this colorless abyss.

"This is Heaven?" Dean asks Raguel incredulously. "I can't even tell you how much of a let-down this is."

Gabriel scoffs and cuffs Dean around the head. "This isn't Heaven, fruitcake. You really think _the Kingdom_ would be a whole lot of nothing?"

"Dude! Stop beating up God," Sam says with a grin. "Isn't that against the rules?"

"Not until he sits his flat ass on the Throne," Gabriel chirps, and knocks Dean about the head one more time. Dean bats at his hand in annoyance. Dean _would_ end up being brain-damaged at the fault of his own team before a fight.

Castiel squints out to where the horizon would be. "Sariel."

Sariel exhales and just starts _dissolving_. It starts at her head and travels downward in a ripple effect, her entire body breaking into tiny bits and pieces that bounce off of each other and emit a sound like a chime until she's nothing but this pinging, writhing mess of light and atoms and energy. Each tiny shard of her breaks off into three more, and it keeps breaking down until she grows and grows and grows, sparks of lightning crackling at her expanding edges, humming with power.

Bobby mutters something that Dean can't understand, but he gets the sheer awe in Bobby's voice. Looking at what Sariel's becoming, he totally gets it.

"What's happening?" It's Rose. Dean had totally forgotten that she and Becks had even come. She sounds scared out of her mind, breathless and confused and shaking. He can't look at her, so totally fixated on Sariel that his eyes are probably going to melt out of his head.

Gabriel, when he answers, is quiet and reverent. "Dean-o wanted a herald, so he got one."

There's a deafening roar, like a plane's taking off right next to Dean's ear, followed by an explosion so bright that it somehow makes the white void they're standing in look dark by comparison. The massive thing that Sariel had become shoots into the "sky," bursting up in a giant geyser burst of color and sound, a trail of fire and wind twisting and burning before dissipating. Sariel disappears into the white, leaving all of them standing there, staring after her.

"If they didn't know we were here, they certainly do now," Sam mutters, gripping his sword tightly.

"Well," Bobby grumps, cocking one of his shotguns, completely fucking fearless. Old school hunter. No wonder Dad'd been friends with him. "Only thing to do is be ready for them. No pussy-footing around when they all come running."

Oh, right. Because there was going to be so much of that until Bobby'd said something.

Dean keeps his eyes on the non-horizon. It'd be really great if it played out like a movie, with the silhouettes of all the angels stepping into view, complete with the dramatic wind and the music swelling -- just so he knows what they're going to be dealing with. Heaven's a big place; there's no way the Metatron would be able to call all twenty-six _billion_ angels just for their little party

So, they wait. And wait. And for a change of pace, they wait some more.

"… Are they coming?" Becks inquires softly, like if she speaks any louder all of Heaven's going to come crashing down on them.

Suddenly, there's a loud bang, and Anna's standing about twenty feet away.

Her chin lowers slightly and if she were human she'd be peering at them through her lashes, all coy and shit, and Dean would probably find it hot. Now, it's just annoying. And scary.

There's another bang, and another angel's standing a few feet away from Anna, staring Mora down.

Another bang, another angel. And another, and another, and another, and another. More and more and more, until they're completely surrounded. It's not just angels, he realizes, but some of them are demons. Hell, most of them are demons, dark and twisting like Mora, probably from all their time in the Pit.

Dean opens his mouth to deliver a truly inspired opener, but Raguel surreptitiously shakes his head once, and Dean remembers the new carvings in his ribs. He's invisible.

"We have long awaited your return, Raguel," Anna says loudly, her voice ringing out like a one-hundred person choir. The space behind her shimmers as her wings explode into six branches.

"I apologize for my absence," Raguel says, pleasant and calm, even as his own wings burst in all directions. He's… fantastic, for lack of a better word. He's amazing to look at, like he should be behind three feet of tempered glass so nothing unworthy would be able to touch him, and yet there's nothing that could cage him. Raguel was the first angel ever made and it shows in the way he holds himself, in the way he appears so contained and yet so everywhere, in the way that Dean's entire body thrums with the feel of him.

The Friend of God.

Sam twitches and Dean has to stop himself from casually asking Sam if he's got ants in his pants, but he glances down and sees the hand at Sam's side curl. The fingers of Sam's hand jerk again, his index and middle fingers pointing to --

Dean looks.

There's --

There's something.

"I must ask you to stop this, Anael," Raguel bellows, wings crackling and hissing with power. "You have all been misled! The Voice that speaks does not speak for all! The Word you follow has been issued with the tongue of a villain!"

"It is _you_ who has been misled!" A new voice rings out. Barachiel. "Do you truly think we will welcome you back into the Kingdom after such an absence? I can sense the taint you carry, Raguel! _Human_. _Demon_. If you would stand with them against us, then we have no choice but to carry out our orders."

Gabriel steps forward, next to Raguel, brilliant. "And what orders were _those_ , Barachiel? Or can you not remember them? Want me to wait while the Metatron feeds you your lines?"

Barachiel turns. "Gabriel. The other traitor."

"Couldn't stomach Heaven's version of entrapment." He pauses and then practically vibrates with dark humor. "Sorry. _Loyalty_."

"Your words do not matter now," Barachiel says. Behind her, coming from where the horizon would be, are hundreds of thousands of silhouettes, Heaven's warriors rushing toward them, just like in the movies. The only thing that could make it better would be some dramatic music.

"It's corrupt!" Sam shouts suddenly, and Dean has to clap his hands over his own mouth to keep him from telling Sam to shut the fuck up. "It's all wrong! It's not Lucifer's or a human's doing! It's right here! It's all right here and if you can't see that… If you can't see that, then you're part of it."

God, Sammy, shut up.

Anna puts all her focus on Sam now. " _You_ , of all, would accuse us of betrayal?"

"You think this is what Jesus wanted?" Sam demands, righteous, standing as tall and firm as any angel would. "Look around you, Anna. War's been brought to Heaven."

Castiel shifts uneasily and Dean wants to brush up against him, to let their fingers touch, even for just a second. But he stays right where he is, thrumming with the need to move, to get right up in Anna's and Barachiel's faces and tell them where they can stick their bullshit orders.

Sam points again with his fingers, which, _okay_ , Dean can take a hint.

Bank left as soon as you're through and keep going until you see the marble. That's what Sariel had said. That's where Sam's pointing. Left.

Castiel glances Dean's way and for a moment -- just one moment -- their eyes meet, and everything slots into place.

 _Rejoice, favored one, and do not fear, for your prayers are heard, and I have finally found you._

"GO!"

He's not sure who makes the first move, whether it's from their side or one of Heaven's, but someone lunges forward and stabs Barachiel in the chest. The reaction is immediate; as she explodes in a fit of light, Gabriel leads his garrison forward to clash with Heaven's forces.

It's complete chaos. Dean can barely see what's going on over the deafening sounds of weapons colliding and angels and demons killing each other. There are too many bodies, all fighting and writhing and trying to survive, crowding him and bumping into him and suffocating him. He thinks he catches sight of Bobby and Rose fighting back to back, Bobby with his angel-killing bullets and Rose awkwardly wielding her sword, but Dean isn't positive. They're swallowed up by the constant push of more souls.

There's an explosion of light so bright that he's blinded for a few seconds. The world narrows down to the sounds of death and screaming, and when he drops his arm from his eyes he can barely make out Sariel as she knocks Anna to the ground and stabs her through the throat.

"She's mine!" Sariel screams, yanking her blade out and bringing it down again, spattering her face with globs of glowing white, like blood. It's Grace. "She's mine! You had no right! She's mine!"

Becks is the one that pulls her away, leaving Anna dead and bleeding Grace everywhere.

Something seizes his wrist and spins him around, and he goes to lash out at his attacker before he sees messy hair and a face he's loved since birth.

"Get out of here, Dean!" Sam shouts, thrusting him away, blood dripping into his eyes. His left arm hangs uselessly at his side, but his right hand lifts his blade and turns away to jump back into the fray. "Go!"

Dean pants heavily, vomit rising in the back of his throat as Castiel suddenly appears in front of Sam to stop a demon from getting a blow in. Sam looks his way again.

"GO!"


	15. Part Thirteen

He pushes his way through the mess of bodies and blades until he can breathe again, free from the fight and left to the mercy of the great void around him. It takes him a moment to make his legs move, because his brain isn't fucking cooperating, but he finally gets into gear and takes off, running faster than he's ever run in his entire life. There's nothing chasing him now, no wendigo or ghoul or vampire or demon. Or even an angel. It's just him, running to beat the clock.

Everything's white, a blur that rushes past him as he keeps forcing himself forward. His muscles are screaming and someone napalmed his lungs, but he doesn't stop. There's no way he can stop now.

He dumps the blade he's been gripping since the gates opened; it weighs him down, throws him off balance. It doesn't do much to lighten his burden. He doesn't stop to think about it, just keeps going. Running, running, running, like he's never done. He hates running. It kills his knees and leaves him aching for days, and every time he swears he'll never do it again, but he's running like his life depends on it. Like life depends on it.

He's running so fast and hard that the sudden brick wall he slams into is a complete surprise.

The ground is like stone beneath him, but as far as he can tell it's just white nothingness. He slams into it with all the finesse of a train crash, body tensing and bruising and breaking, and for a second he's stunned beyond belief. Who the fuck would put a brick wall in a world full of nothing? That's Loony Toons shit, which must make him Wile E. Coyote.

Groaning, he gathers his wits about him and rolls onto his stomach, pushing himself up onto his knees. He looks up.

He's on a beach.

His hands are pushing against sand, giving between his fingers until his palms come away shiny and gritty. Grunting, he gets to his feet. It takes him a minute to gain his bearings, legs trembling from the strain of running and attempting to stay upright on sand, and he thinks he's going to throw up. But the air is cold and calms him right down, the sting of salt in his nostrils grounding him.

It's night, but the bajillion stars above provide plenty of light. He knows this place. Hell, he was standing right here not even a week ago.

Resolute Bay. The burial place of Jesus Christ.

Except… it looks different. Wild. Not as clean-cut as it had been when he first went and stood with Castiel at the shore. There are huge boulders jettisoning out of the water and the air smells way too pure, filled only with snow and clear of any kind of pollution.

He knows where he is, but he'd love to know _when_ he is.

"I was not sure I would find you," Raguel says behind him, and Dean spins around in surprise, nearly falling backwards on his ass when the sand gives unexpectedly beneath his feet. "I looked for months."

Dean scoffs. "Kind of an exaggeration, don't you think?"

Raguel doesn't look amused. In fact, the guy's not even smiling, which is completely out of character as far as Dean's concerned. Raguel's vessel, whoever the man is, was made to smile at small children and puppies. Even as one of the most powerful angels, Raguel never seemed to be able to shake human emotion; it clings to him like a second skin, like it's a package deal and he can't suppress it like all the other angels. To see him so somber is really fucking creepy.

"I was around."

He lets out a yelp -- a manly yelp -- at the unexpected new voice. It's a man, but he doesn't look or feel like an angel. He doesn't carry himself the way an angel carries a vessel, like it belongs to them but they can't quite fit in it. Castiel's gotten better at it over the past few months, even more so since Jesus's death, but the other angels all look like living mannequins. This guy, though, is just that: a guy.

"My Lord --"

The man is dark, skin and hair, but he's still somehow bright against the backdrop of the night and the black ocean behind him. He stands comfortably in simple clothes and smiles at both Dean and Raguel, and somehow everything in Dean relaxes at that smile.

"None of that tonight, Raguel. Isn't it wonderful?" The man gestures to the sky, to the arm of the Milky Way that stretches across billions of stars, with great pride.

Raguel sighs and starts forward, coming right at Dean.

"Dude, I don't know how I ended up here, but you've gotta get me ba --"

Raguel doesn't pay any attention to Dean, probably because he's too busy walking _through_ Dean to care about what he's saying. Dean stands dumbly as Raguel passes through and continues walking toward the man, confused as all fuck as to what's going on.

"Raguel!" Dean shouts, turning, but Raguel's standing next to the man and admiring the sky. "Raguel, I don't know if you forgot, but we're in the middle of waging war on Heaven, man! I get that you'd rather look at the sky -- dude, I'd rather be in a motel watching _Blazing Saddles_ \-- but we've got more pressing issues at hand. Like me getting to the Throne!"

No answer. Fucking great.

"I love it here," the man says, painfully content. "It's so… Sometimes I feel like eternity began right here, where we stand, Raguel."

 _"He used to say it began here, at Resolute Bay."_

Dean stops dead in his tracks.

Oh, holy God.

Raguel tips his head down and regards Jesus thoughtfully. "Why are we here, my Lord?"

Jesus doesn't reply for a long moment, and in the silence that ensues Dean can hear his own heart pounding a tattoo against the soothing rumble of the ocean, the rush of blood to his head drowning out the peaceful whisper of the sea breeze.

Finally, Jesus bends down, grabs a rock, and skips it over the waves. "Do you know what today is, Raguel?"

"… I do not, my Lord, forgive me. What day is it?"

"It is nothing," Jesus says cheekily, skipping another stone. "Not yet. But in a way, it is. It is the beginning of the end, Raguel. My time as Ruler is coming to a close. I can taste him on the wind, Raguel, my successor. The very Earth is waiting for him."

"My Lord, you have centuries yet --"

"They will pass quickly, in the blink of an eye." Jesus waves his protest off with a light flick of his wrist. "He will have a great many hardships in his life. Too many for one man to handle. They will shape him into a new kind of leader. The kind that Heaven needs."

Dean swallows thickly. His eyes are burning like a motherfucker.

"My Lord --"

"You cannot be blind to the shadows that linger in his eyes," Jesus says, suddenly cold as stone, and Dean doesn't think they're talking about him anymore. "His hatred for Humanity is destroying him."

Raguel sighs and runs his fingers over the back of his neck, an entirely human gesture. "I have noticed."

"He will be the one to bring about the end to my reign."

It knocks Raguel for a loop. He actually staggers back as if struck, like it's the last thing in the world he ever expected to pass the lips of Christ. "He -- We must stop him! We will call together a Consultation and see that he is --"

Jesus laughs. "Punish him for a crime he has not yet committed? Oh, Raguel. No, I have seen my end and it will happen when it needs to happen. There is no stopping what is already in motion… but it can be changed."

Dean watches as Jesus reaches out to Raguel, something held between his fingers for the taking. Raguel looks down at it, confused and more than a little discombobulated.

"What is this?"

"The List." Jesus presses it into Raguel's hand. "It must be hidden. The Metatron can never find it. If he does, he will destroy it and the name after mine will be erased."

Raguel stares at Jesus for an eternity, lips parted around sorrow, but Jesus just waits like they have all the time in the world. Finally, Raguel's trembling fingers close around it, and he tucks it away somewhere, safe and sound. Jesus grins, crooked teeth glinting in the starlight, and steps back.

"Thank you, my friend."

Raguel looks down at their feet and nods.

Jesus places his hands on his hips and spins around in a slow circle, surveying the beach, the sky, the ocean. He drops his arms and smiles. "Do you know that in all my time on the Throne I have not created anything?"

"I… I did not."

Dropping to one knee, Jesus touches the wet sand at their feet with the tips of his fingers, then lifts them, bringing a curtain of sand that glistens like diamonds, glowing brighter and brighter until each grain of sand looks like the stars above them. He stands and takes his other hand, pointing it in the direction of the ocean and bringing a bubble of seawater to him. The curtain of sand, of stars, elongates and twists around the bubble, faster and faster until it's a swiftly-moving ring of light around it.

Jesus, lit up with creation, is beautiful.

"When it seemed as though there were no more wonders to be had, the halls of the Kingdom filled with all manners of splendor, He wished to bestow one last gift at the end of an era. He reached into the Earth and took a handful of sand and sea, breathing His own breath into it. And lo, the last angel was born. Glory be _always_ to Castiel."

Dean sucks in a breath, but he's not on the beach anymore. He's back to being surrounded by white, alone.

Coughing wetly, he drags the back of his wrist across his cheeks, roughly wiping away the tears that linger there. He's tired, drained, and somehow filled with so much energy that he feels like a live wire, ready to explode at the first touch.

Suddenly Castiel's close friendship with Jesus makes sense. Fuck, he wonders if Castiel even knows.

A laugh claws its way out of his throat and he wraps a hand around his neck, just to feel how barbed it is when it morphs into a sob. He's so tired. He just wants to sit down for a bit, Sam and Castiel and Bobby with him, and just breathe. Just for a little bit.

"Not yet," he whispers hoarsely, like he's been gargling rocks. "Not yet."

Sniffing loudly and swallowing it down, he drops his hand and stares. Groans.

He's in a forest now. He hates forests. Nature sucks.

His ribs throb, reminding him that he's invisible to everyone except the one that counts, and he takes off running again, as hard as he can.

The air smells like the mountains, like the trip to Vermont he and Dad had taken after the debacle with Thierry, hunting a clan of cockatrice that were preying on campers in the Green Mountains. The trees are the same, a combination of tall pines and trees so old and tall that they probably don't have names. His boots crush dead leaves and needles, the thick soles helping him to jump fallen trunks and rocks.

He wasn't sure what to expect when he got to some kind of half-way point, but a fucking forest wasn't it. And it's endless, absolutely endless.

Fuck. His legs are burning with the strain, screaming for him to slow down, take a breather, but he pushes on through the thickening trees, trunks getting fatter with every step, the forest growing darker until he's running in almost pitch blackness.

Just like Vermont. This better not be a memory.

His foot catches on a root, or something equally obnoxious, and he crashes into the ground again, his jeans tearing at the knee. He gets a mouthful of wet, dead leaves. Better still, something's crawling around in the leaves, on his tongue, and he gags, spitting it all out until he can't gather enough saliva.

Then he takes note of the fact that it's light again. And that the forest is gone.

He's lying on a marble floor surrounded by great pillars that scream "STOLEN FROM THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM," and staring up at a series of crumbling steps. Coughing the last bits of dirt from his mouth, he gets to his feet and looks up the stairs to where there's a marble chair on a platform, alone and innocuous amid all the grandeur of the hall.

This must be it. The Throne.

Well, that was easy.

He steps forward to ascend the stairs, but his foot goes right through the marble. Another memory.

There's a loud crack, like a firework, and Dean spins around to see one of the pillars give way beneath the force of the Metatron. The marble splits and rides up until it hits the ceiling and is a veritable canyon, and then crumbles in great chunks, slamming into the floor, which cracks too. It's a fucking mess.

The Metatron wheezes something that Dean can't quite make out, then steps over the fallen pillar like it's nothing. Bastard's not even going to clean up his mess.

"There is nothing for it."

Dean starts in surprise as Jesus steps out from behind the staircase. He's not as jovial as he was when standing with Raguel at Resolute Bay. Now he's as cold as the marble around them, but there are shadows under his eyes and he looks gaunt. Exhausted.

The Metatron turns. "This was your doing."

"Castiel made his own decision," Jesus says quietly, small and vulnerable. "Commendable for an angel under your tutelage. He did what was just."

"It does not matter," the Metatron sneers. "Your Righteous Man broke, and thus dissolved the first seal. Lucifer will soon walk the Earth and do what should have been done a long time ago."

Jesus tilts his head. A family trait. "What bothers you more, Metatron? That he is base in your eyes or that he is next in line?"

"He is a _beast_. You are all beasts. Clawing, rutting, primordial vermin, all of you. Since the beginning when you crawled out of the mud, leaving your piss and shit behind you, you have proven time and again that you are unworthy of the paradise we bestowed upon you. We gave you utopia, and you squandered it, multiplying and killing all manors of the Father's splendor, and tainting the Throne wrongfully given to you." With every poisonous barb that he spits, the Metatron takes a step, until he is merely inches away from Jesus. "It does not matter. Lucifer will right the wrong and scratch you out, as effortlessly as one would a name on a list."

Heart pounding, Dean looks at Jesus and waits for the volley.

Jesus doesn't disappoint. "He would… if it were not too late."

The Metatron freezes. "What did you say?"

"Your _champion_ does not walk the Earth. Stopped at the very last minute by those clawing, primordial vermin." A slow smile spreads across Jesus's face, erasing all that exhaustion. "It has always been your greatest failing. You underestimate them when our Maker only wanted you to see them as equal. Those _beasts_ you loathe inherit the Earth and in moments, the Throne."

The Metatron looks stricken, and Jesus smiles.

"You have failed, Metatron, and soon all will know it."

It happens so fast that Dean doesn't actually see it; it's a blur of color and terrible, terrible sound, like ripping open the sky and pouring battery acid in.

With a snarl, the Metatron drops Jesus's head as if he finds it distasteful, blood spattering against the marble as it hits with a wet crack. Bone peaks out from where it had been severed from the spinal cord, winking in the light, surrounded by broken flesh and tissue. The body topples over, spilling blood and ichor out like someone kicked over a box of Christmas decorations.

Dean's seen way worse than this. Hell, he's _done_ worse. It shouldn't bother him the way it does, but he stares at the head and feels like he's going to die.

For a minute, the Metatron does nothing, just stares down at the headless meat sack that used to be the ruler of Heaven like he can't quite figure out what it's doing there, ruining the décor.

"You fuck," Dean gasps, glaring up at the bastard, unseen and unheard, but now he knows. He knows everything. There's no way it's going to be covered up now. "I'm going to _end_ you."

Finally, the Metatron walks away from the corpse and starts screaming for help, that Jesus Christ has been murdered. Angels immediately start popping in, Barachiel among them, all horrified and devastated and in a total uproar.

"I feel the presence of the Morning Star! Hurry! Spread out and search! This is an unforgivable sin and I will not stand for it to go unpunished!"

"Me either." Dean watches, the world dissolving around him to white, as the angels fly away in hopes of catching someone who's standing right before them. "Me either."

 

He looks up and finds himself lying on green grass, thousands of massive marble ruins stretched out before him like a graveyard, all leading up to the biggest construct he's ever seen. It looks like the Greek temple thing. The Parthenon. Well, there it is, bigger and better than Google Images could ever be.

Sucking in a breath, he pushes himself to his feet, swaying a little as his muscles protest. A quick scan of his surroundings tells him that he's still alone, just him and the giant broken marble pieces. It's too easy, too simple, but he has no time to be suspicious because his ass has places to be.

He jogs across the field this time, a little slower, a little better for his lungs, giving him time to recover from such a strenuous run. He's getting too old to do the marathon thing under pressure.

By the time he makes it through the sea of marble and reaches the crumbling steps of the Parthenon, he's wrung out and tired, and the absolute silence of the field is starting to get to him. Barring the unexpected memories, he hasn't heard anything from the moment he started to run. He hopes that Heaven's set up in some spatial-time thing and that he's somehow far enough away that he wouldn't be able to hear the epic battle. But it bothers him that he has no way of knowing how they're doing.

The inside of the temple is completely bare. Just crumbling pillars and a cracked floor, a long stretch of white leading to… well, what do you know. A marble chair on a platform. This all looks familiar, right down to the bloodstains in the floor.

"Finally," he mutters, lifting his foot to take the first step inside, when a fucking _steam train_ hits him in the chest, throwing him backwards through the air. There's nothing worse than the feeling of total free-fall, except maybe the impact of hitting the ground hard. Which he does.

He's winded and his ribs hurt like a motherfucker, but nothing feels broken, which probably won't last long. The Metatron isn't going to let him inside, not without a little underhanded play. Dean can do underhanded.

He takes out his knife from where it's been strapped to his side and starts on his palms. Just quick, efficient strokes that sketch out a familiar design. When he's done, he sheathes his blade and gets to his knees without his hands touching the ground. Wouldn't do to get dirt all in it.

Dean looks to the temple. There's the man of the hour, sweater vest and all.

Dean smiles in greeting, wincing at the pull on his ribs, and starts walking back toward the temple. Ow. "Hey there, Mister Rogers! Didn't see you there! I hope we can be neighbors."

The Metatron smiles and tilts his head. It's adorable when Castiel does it, but on the Metatron it just looks stupid. "Why, Dean. I expected you twenty minutes ago. Tardiness does not reflect well upon a supposed leader."

He tries to quell the rage that boils inside of him at that, but from the pleased grin on the Metatron's face he doesn't succeed in hiding it. "Not that you'd know, though, right?"

The Metatron ignores him and begins ticking off on his fingers. "Do you honestly think yourself a worthy candidate, Dean? Consorting with demons? Corrupting and lying with an angel of Heaven? Is there anything you won't defile?"

"Trust me," Dean spits, slowly taking the stairs. " _You're_ definitely safe."

He's a little faster this time. Before the Metatron can kick him in the chest again, Dean claps his hands together and watches through the blinding light as the Metatron is shot to the ends of the universe. The angel banishing sigils carved into his palms burn, the magic gone, and he takes off running down the long hall, the chair in his sights.

He's barely reached the first step of the platform when his legs are swept out from underneath him. He crashes into the stairs with a pained cry, fingers gripping his hair and slamming his head down once. Hard. OW.

"So resilient," the Metatron coos, bringing Dean's head down again.

"Stop!" Dean grits out, trying to work his hand up between his temple and the marble to lessen the blows. "That's such a shitty move!"

The Metatron hums. "And yet so effective."

The fingers in Dean's hair release him, his head reflexively thunking against the marble, and the Metatron steps back with a soft, awful laugh. Dean rolls onto his back to keep an eye on him.

"I will not hesitate to admit that you can be clever, Dean. The sigils on your palms were inspired, if crude, but I cannot be so easily stopped." He smiles down at Dean, eyes blazing with hatred, unimaginable power, and the promise of a slow death. "I cannot be stopped at all."

Dean coughs painfully. "So, let me ask you. If you kill me, what happens? Am I going to be the only schmuck walking around in Hell?"

"Oh, no!" Like the very idea is horrifyingly low-brow. "Oh, Dean, do you honestly think I would allow your soul to live? I am going to rip you apart and scatter you across the universe, so far and in so many pieces that you will never be whole. In every black hole, in every dying star, in every shadowed corner in the dregs of the most distant galaxy, there you will be: the great Dean Winchester. Every bit the soldier's burial you deserve."

A laugh bubbles out of his chest, tinged with blood. He can't help it. The guy's genuinely funny. "Dude, if the evil villain thing doesn't work out for you, you definitely have a bright future in human politics. Do you ever shut up?"

It wins him a hard kick to the gut. Not enough to rupture anything or kill him, but enough to hurt like he's being stabbed. Dean curls into himself with a groan and tastes blood on his tongue. Maybe it _was_ enough to rupture something. Probably something useless, like his spleen.

"You've got the usurper thing down, and you definitely know how to play The Blame Game, so you'll fit right in. Do your precious angels know what you've done? Do they know that they serve a murderer? You killed _God_ ," he continues with a laugh, bracing himself for another blow to the stomach. Except the Metatron is all about being unique.

Hands grip the back of his shirt and fling him through the air at what feels like a million miles an hour, right into a pillar. Dean feels it crack and give against his back, much like his shoulder bone as it shatters inside of him.

He hits the floor hard, cracking a couple of ribs. Now they're in business.

" _I_ killed God?" The Metatron's suddenly right there, gripping Dean by the throat and getting up in his face. "I did not kill God. I would never kill God. I killed an imposter, Dean. A hoax. God does not bleed, Dean, not now, not ever. God _creates_ , and none of you apes have ever done!"

"Castiel." From soil and sea, the only angel of two worlds.

The Metatron scoffs. "A disobedient little _cooz_ who is even less worthy to step foot into the Kingdom than _you_."

Dean lashes out with his angel-ganking sword, stabbing the Metatron right in the shoulder. The Metatron stumbles back with a cry, clutching his vessel's shoulder tightly, like it's on fire. Dean props himself up against the pillar and can't help the smirk that spreads across his face.

"That hurt? My bad. You know how it is with us apes, all those unexpected muscle spasms."

He expects to be thrown at something for that and he's not disappointed. This time it's only the floor, somewhere in the middle of the hall. He stares blankly at the ceiling, at the play of stars and planets in the tribute to outer space. It actually might just be a window and space is right outside. A galaxy in the shape of a pinwheel spins dreamily across the ceiling, from one edge to the other.

The claw of doom is back in his hair, lifting his head up and slamming it down. His cheekbone caves in. He burbles in agony.

"Do you honestly think I would allow another one of you to assume power again? Did you think I would allow _you_ to sit on the Throne? Logos at least had some integrity and morals, but you… filthy, coarse _whore_. I would rather see all of creation unravel than call you Lord in Heaven." The Metatron growls the last bit right into his ear, forcing Dean's head into the floor, splitting the skin where he cheek used to be. His skull is going to cave under the pressure. He's going to die here, six steps away from the endgame.

Sam -- _Cas_!

And suddenly the weight's gone.

Dean grunts and helplessly rolls onto his side, spying the hem of a familiar tan trench coat.

"Cas!" Only it comes out more like "Krhagh!"

Where the fuck is Raguel? If anyone can give the Metatron a run for his money, it'd be him.

Castiel doesn't look over his shoulder at him, just keeps his gaze locked on the Metatron, who looks amused at the whole situation. Until Castiel bends down and picks up Dean's discarded blade. "Raguel is currently fighting off four archangels, Dean. I will deal with this. Get to the Throne."

A swell of sheer adoration for Castiel hits him like a tidal wave, but he tamps it down and tries to get to his knees. The pain is incredible; he's not sure the human body is supposed to endure anything like it, but he can't be a regular human being. He's never been. He's a hunter, a warrior, a candidate for the best position in the company, and he needs to get to the Throne.

But he collapses onto his belly. He's too tired, in too much pain. Clenching his teeth around the sob that wants to escape his throat, Dean kicks out his legs and uses his arm -- his left one dead -- to drag himself forward. Inch by painful inch, bones in his chest rubbing together, sigil against sigil. He stops and vomits up blood and bile, his throat burning with it, but he digs his elbow into the marble and drags himself through it.

"Impressive, Castiel!" Dean hears the Metatron shout, but he can't make himself turn around to see what's going on. "So violent in your quest to protect your animal! Your father would be so proud!"

Dean collapses again, chin smacking hard off of a marble edge. He thinks a tooth's chipped and wonders for a psychotic moment if Castiel will still love him if he has a chipped tooth. With a whimper that he will deny forever that he made, he opens his eyes and stares at… stairs. Oh god, he made it. The marble chair is so close, just seven steps away; he can see the individual cracks in the base. A little bit of spackle would fix that right up. No one would even notice.

There's a sudden scream, a high-pitched sound that brings to mind shattering glass and appliances turning on without warning, and Dean turns his head just in time to see the Metatron withdraw his own blade from Castiel's throat.

"CAS!!"

Castiel claps his hands over the hole in his throat, dropping to his knees, Grace seeping through his fingers. The Metatron pats his head, like a grandfather would a favored child, and leaves him there, walking calmly toward Dean and the Throne. He's smiling. His blade has Castiel's blood on it.

Dean tries to scramble up the stairs and just barely manages to reach the top step before the Metatron's in his face, smile twice as large this close, forcing him to stand.

"It brings me great joy to see you before me." It's what he'd said at Jesus's funeral, pretending for the sake of his audience to give a shit. Laying the blame at Lucifer's feet while he smiled and waved and got away with it. "It was always going to end here, Dean. Only one born of the Kingdom should be allowed to take this seat. I do not care if it is law; you do not belong here. This is not yours to have. Not after we have been sentenced to eons of servitude -- even before you walked the Earth, we were enslaved to you. No more, Dean. I will not have it anymore."

His last thought before the Metatron brings the blade down on him is, _I should've brought my own knife and buried it in his ugly mug._

But.

The blade never makes contact.

One hand clasped over his own throat, the other against Dean's chest, held between him and the Metatron, Castiel smiles around a mouthful of blood and light, around the blade sticking out of his chest, and pushes.

Pushes him right onto the Throne.


	16. Part Fourteen

When he comes to, Dean's slumped over in the most uncomfortable chair he's ever sat in. He winces and shifts, eyes opening. Everything's so bright, jumpy, like television snow, but it all melts and settles as he adjusts. He feels no pain. He reaches up and brushes his fingers over his cheek, feels the perfect swell of it, the bone whole beneath his touch. His arm is working again, his breathing easy as pie.

He looks around.

The first thing he sees is Castiel, crumpled in a heap at his feet, the fabric of the trench coat stained red, spilling over onto the marble and staining it. His eyes are closed. He's not moving. The gaping holes in his throat and chest made sure of that.

Numb, he drags his gaze away from Castiel to where the Metatron stands, eyes wide, like he can't believe that Dean still managed to make it into the hot seat.

Chilled, shivering, he points at the Metatron. "Don't move."

At his words, the Metatron slams prostrate into the marble floor, and Dean stands, picking up the stained blade on his way. He has to step over Castiel, a move that makes him nauseous, but it brings him to the stairs, and to the Metatron.

"Go ahead," the Metatron spits, writhing against invisible bonds. "Prove just what you are. Show everyone what a _beast_ you are."

Dean looks at the blade, at the dark red spatters, at the sharp point, and thoughtfully turns it in his hand to he's study the pommel. It's nice, heavy. Good solid weight.

"The only beast I see here," he says softly, "is you."

He brings down the pommel hard. It splits the vessel's head like a watermelon, sinking through brain matter and tissue, sinew sliding against the metal and becoming tangled. He withdraws it and brings it down again, watching as the brain tears at the core and breaks into pieces, raw cauliflower beneath the unforgiving gavel in his hand. It cracks against the wall of the skull, fracturing bone and forcing it out through the face.

He brings it down again.

Again. And again. Until there's nothing left of the head, until he's covered in ichor and brain matter, bits of bone and tissue, until the sweater vest isn't yellow anymore, but red. There's enough of a neck to impale, though. And he does. Again. And again.

He has no need for a Voice of God.

God's speaking for Himself, now.

Panting, he wipes the blood from his face, smearing it, and drops the blade to the floor. He's too everywhere, too scattered, head dropping back and breathing for a minute. It's done. It's finished.

He never met Jesus, but Dean would bet that Jesus wouldn't have approved of any of this, justice be damned. Whatever. There you go, Jesus. A little gift from your pal, Dean.

"dea...n…"

"Cas!" He gets his second wind, scrambling to his feet and rushing for the platform, taking the stairs two at a time and dropping to his knees hard, hefting Castiel up so that he's lying half against Dean's chest and mostly against Dean's legs. "Fuck, Cas, hang on. Don't move your hand, just tell me what to do. How do I fix it?"

"did… w..in…?" The light in Castiel's eyes and mouth is growing brighter and brighter, and Dean slaps a hand over Castiel's mouth, using his other to cover his throat. "di…d…"

"Cas, shut the fuck up, we won. You need to tell me how to fix this. I'm God! I can fix this now! You just have to tell me how!" When he gets no answer, he smacks Castiel across the face. "Cas! That's an order! You love those, remember? I order you to tell me how to fix this! You did this once for me and I'm gonna return the favor. Come on, Cas, throw me a bone here."

Nothing.

No.

No, he won't accept this.

"Cas!" He shouts, voice cracking, and he buries his face in hair that smells of mountain air and blood. "You gotta wake up, Cas. I need you to wake up. We're going to fucking Hawaii, remember? Those hermit crabs aren't gonna free themselves, man, so wake up!"

But Castiel doesn't wake up. Castiel's not going to wake up.

How.

How can he have all this power and not be able to bring one person back to life?

How could they have won, and still lose?

Dean would pray to God, except God's a fake.

He drifts in and out, lying there with Castiel's body, a body that belonged to Castiel alone in the end, beautiful and somehow completely different from Jimmy Novak. It fits so well in his arms, so comfortably against him, and he pictures how they were going to lie like this in a hammock, between two palm trees overlooking the Pacific. Or warm on a beach, flinging sea shells the color of Castiel's skin at each other, laughing about the previous night's arrest and how many more shops they would have to hit before Castiel was nicknamed 'The Crab Bandit' by the news media.

"Dean!"

He clutches Castiel a little tighter. "Not now, Sammy."

The footsteps echo somehow, the sound hanging in the air like a dead thing. The temple is a funeral parlor now, dead bodies everywhere.

"Oh, Dean," Sam whispers from somewhere above him. Dean can feel the heat from his legs as Sam sits down next to him, placing a gentle hand on Dean's arm. Comforting. Solace. "We were fighting for… forever. They just kept coming. We lost so many, Dean. The garrison. Rose. Gabriel. Mora. Bobby's barely hanging on. Then… it just stopped. They all stopped. It was like someone hit a switch. I can't -- Dean… Dean, god, look at me, please?"

Dean didn't think he had any more tears to cry. He'd been wrong, as per usual.

"Sam." He rolls a little so he can look up at Sam, drawn by the endless parade of tears down Sam's face. "Cas… Cas --"

"He kept me safe." The words are barely audible, but Dean feels them with the accuracy of a bullet. "He kept me safe the whole time."

Dean's going to drown. "I'm God, Sammy. Why can't I fix this? Why don't I know how?"

"Because you were supposed to be taught."

Sam turns at the newest addition to the conversation, but Dean rolls back and buries his face into Castiel's hair. The blood is drying, goopy and caked and rubbing the skin of his cheek rough. He can't look. He can't look or else he just might destroy everything.

"Oh, Castiel," Raguel murmurs, taking the spot next to Castiel. Dean glances up and nearly starts sobbing at the look of sheer loss on Raguel's face. "The Son of God, dead for love of Humanity. That is what your books say. For love. Always to die for love."

"Did he… How big was the blast?" Sam inquires inanely, and Dean stares at him in horror.

"Jesus _Christ_ , Sam!" What the fuck kind of question is th --

 

 

 

Wait.

Dean glances down at Castiel's body.

There'd been no blast. None that he knows of.

 _"Look, a body can be brought back easily, or another can be remade, or someone else's body can be used. Hell, provided it happened recently enough, their body could be used again. A soul, however, is what really matters. A soul still has a chance of living."_

Fuck, he's a dumbass.

He pulls himself up and pushes Sam back, kneeling beside Castiel's prone form, Castiel's hand still clapped over his throat, holding his grace and soul in. Even in death, he's smarter than Dean would ever be in life.

"Okay," he murmurs to himself, rubbing his hands together. "Okay. Shit."

Healing Castiel's body doesn't seem like it'll work; the Grace is already half-way gone. No, he needs to forge something new. Sea shells from Hawaii sound about right. And maybe something from the star rivers above Bobby's front porch. Or a stone from a distant planet.

He uses all of them, filling up the emptiness and buoying everything that's still in there, throwing in a little of the Winchester magic and sheer dumb luck for good measure. If he had duct tape lying around, he'd use that too. Can't be too careful.

And he waits.

And waits.

And --

He's already crying like a little girl with a skinned knee by the time Castiel's fingers twitch, but he still manages to say through his sobs, "Rejoice, favored one, and do not fear, for your prayers are heard, and I have finally found you."

Eyes still closed, Castiel smiles. "Dean, shut up."


	17. This is not an epilogue

It's hot.

That's all he's been able to think about for the last two days. The heat. It's not regular heat, because having grown up in the Midwest he knows heat. He knows how the air shimmers above scalding asphalt on the long stretches of road in Kansas, the way the fields in Missouri are scorched with the sun's affection, the resigned turning of windmills all throughout Iowa. He's spent countless afternoons in the Impala, soaked through with sweat, ready to sacrifice an arm or a leg or Sam for a cold front, or at the very least a bit of rain.

This is a different kind of heat. He likes this heat. It rides on the back of the sea breeze, tempering it into something manageable, warm instead of oppressive, clean instead of cloying. It smells like the trees that cling to the sides of the rock faces that line the beaches, greener than anything he's ever seen in his life, surrounding him like how a kid would throws his arms around his father's neck and hold on.

The sun's dipping below the horizon, taking its heat with it and leaving bare traces, giving instead one hell of a sunset and a cool breeze. He watches the colors chase each other across the sky, reds and golds and oranges, setting the ocean ablaze.

A shout tears him away from his contemplation of the ocean and he turns his head, unable to stop a laugh as he watches Sam splash the hell out of Castiel. It had taken some convincing to get Castiel into the swim trunks, but it had taken even more to get him in the water. Once he went in, though, he was loathe to come out. Sam had taken it upon himself to teach Castiel the basics of dicking around in the ocean, how to splash just right, how to body surf the tide, how to pack a mudball and the best way to throw it _at Dean_.

They've been here for five days now, still in awe of the coastline, the people, the atmosphere, and they're in no hurry to leave. He hasn't seen Sam this happy in years, and he doesn't think Castiel's ever been so relaxed. In South Dakota, Bobby's sitting on his porch being driven out of his mind by Gabriel, while the Paladium Quartet -- as Sam's taken to calling Sariel and her psychotic brood -- are gearing up for finals. All alive, all well, not a mark on them. Because Dean's that good.

And he's… He's good.

In a few minutes, he's about to be even better.

"I was here when this island was birthed," someone says behind him, and Dean grins.

"You're late. I called, like, an hour ago. What if I had been in trouble or some shit? You ought to be ashamed of yourself." But it's all in good fun. There isn't much that can harsh his buzz right now.

Raguel smiles and inhales deeply, eyes sliding shut to savor it. After a moment, he regards Dean curiously. "Do not misunderstand me -- I am very happy to see you -- but I… Why have you called me here, Dean? There is much to do in Heaven."

Dean grins and turns to face the ocean, catching the bare curve of the sun as it sinks from view. The first stars are coming out. "Did you know that I haven't made anything yet? I keep thinking about what the Metatron'd said, about how being God means you need to create, to make. And I haven't yet. I think it's time that I should."

Head tilting in confusion, Raguel asks quietly, "What did you have in mind?"

"Bigfoot." Raguel stares, and Dean cracks up. "No, I'm kidding. I'm going to make… a change. To the rules."

Raguel waits.

"I want angels to be able to sit on the Throne."

Raguel sucks in a breath and Dean holds up a hand to stem the protest he knows is coming. "Dude, let me finish. I don't want a limit on who can be the big guy. It should be open to whoever's worthy of it. So, my first decree is this: everyone. Everyone is fair game. Angel, human, fucking _Vulcan_ \-- I don't care. Everyone gets to have a shot."

"But the List --"

"Fuck the List." Dean shrugs. "I'm God, so I get to change the rules. Effective immediately."

Raguel stares at him for a long moment, long enough that Dean shifts uneasily under the scrutiny, but a slow smile spreads across Raguel's face, grateful and relieved.

He laughs. "Dude, are you going to cry?"

"No," Raguel scoffs, still smiling.

"Good. And for my next trick… In the same vein of being able to do whatever I want because I'm God and I'm awesome --" Raguel rolls his eyes, but Dean pointedly ignores it and pushes on -- "I'm allowed to give it up to whoever I want. So… I hope you didn't have plans for the next few millennia."

He grins and holds out his hand to Raguel, who looks so dumbfounded that Dean wants to take a picture and then post it all over the internet.

"Dean, no --"

"Ah, ah, ah," Dean tsks, grinning so widely it feels like it's going to split his face. "I'm God. I get to do whatever I want. And I want to do this. It should be yours, Raguel."

He looks over his shoulder to see Sam kicking the air futilely as Castiel holds him above his head, then tosses him in the ocean. Castiel laughs as Sam breeches the surface, sputtering and wiping his hair from his eyes.

"This means war!" Sam shouts, lunging for Castiel, but a wave catches him in the face.

"See that?" Dean asks Raguel. "That's it for me. That, right there, is what I want. I don't need eternity. Guys like me aren't supposed to have it anyway. Sam's gonna die someday, but not before he has a long life. Cas is gonna kick it at some point, too, but at this rate I'll outlive him a million times over. I want to see them live; I want to be there for all of it. That's what I want. I want to be Dean Winchester, and nobody else."

Raguel opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, and Dean reaches for him, clasping his shoulder tightly. "You're a good friend, Raguel, and I hope you'll still be one after tonight, but you deserve this. It's time you took what's rightfully yours. No lists, nothing."

He can feel the shift. Where everything was possible, time and space at his command, he's just a guy on a beach in Hawaii. Dean releases Raguel and looks up. He'll never get tired of the looking at the sky from this viewpoint. It's big and beautiful and mysterious, the way it ought to be.

"I know that Heaven's in good hands. And when it's time, I'll be kicking down your door with a six pack of Heineken and a boatload of stories about Sam's kids and their kids and the absolute monster of a wolfhound that Cas and I will have someday. But I'm gonna do it as me."

Dean follows Raguel's gaze over to where Sam and Castiel are still horsing around, Castiel sending wave after wave at Sam until Sam cries uncle.

"I've got my Heaven, man," Dean says softly. "I'm all set."

Raguel smiles and holds out a hand for Dean to shake. Just a handshake now. "You would have been great, Dean Winchester."

Dean grips his hand, hard. "… Any way you can still keep all the bars as churches?"

"Not a chance." But Raguel's laughter hangs in the air as he disappears, leaving the Earth to go back home, back to where he belongs. Dean stares at the place he'd been for a long moment, wistful, but okay. Good. Great, even. As far as being a Winchester goes, this was a pretty awesome week.

"Dean!" Castiel shouts, throwing an arm into the air.

Sam comes at him from behind and uses all his bulk to dunk him. "Dean, come on! I need all the help I can get!"

He grins.

Pulling off his shirt, he tosses it onto the sand and goes to show them how it's done.

 

{Begin.}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **07.05.2010**
> 
> This was my first (and probably last) Big Bang, and it wouldn't be complete if I didn't acknowledge a few things -- and people -- first.
> 
> It took me a long time to decide just who would play the "villain," and even longer to decide if I would stick with only Christianity-based angels. But then I decided, fuck it, I'll throw everyone in there. If Heaven exists, I'm sure there aren't such defined boundaries.
> 
> Some people might scoff at the idea of Dean becoming God; I, normally, would be one of them. But in breaking down just what kind of a role God plays in this, taking away the sheer awe of it and turning it into something more impersonal, it becomes less of "omg the highest power ever" and instead a role to play. How much of a difference is there between being God and being the vessel for the most revered archangel in existence? It's a thin, blurry line.
> 
> Either way, whether you loved it or hated it or were confused by it or want to run to the nearest church and pray for my soul, the story made you feel something. And that's pretty much what I was gunning for.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to Sleepwalker1015 for creating lovely art for this! It couldn't have been easy, especially since the draft I'd sent her was a hot mess and in need of a serious overhaul. She worked so hard for me and I can't thank her enough.
> 
> Thanks to Nightanddaze, Darksylvia and Wordsalone for their encouragement when I was just starting this and already beginning to doubt myself. They definitely pushed me through some of the hardest parts of the story.
> 
> Thanks to Annundriel for putting up with me and for beta-ing a good portion of the story. The sex scene? I would've been laughed off the internet if she hadn't stepped in and made it GOOD. I owe a great debt to her.
> 
> And most importantly, thanks to Tigbit, my indomitable beta and partner-in-crime, who ~~coerced~~ convinced me to join the Big Bang challenge in the first place. She was there every single step of the way, encouraging me, arguing with me, helping me to flesh out scenes, and basically carrying me through the last seven months. This stupid story gave me one of my best friends and I am so grateful. Phone calls, texts, emails, and IMs -- she never gave up on me.
> 
> Tig, I love you. Thank you for everything. Now let's go chase us some tornadoes!


End file.
